MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. Participants in the Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 scientific expedition will complain to the Environmental Prosecutor's Office and the environment watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, about the severe microplastics pollution of the Barents Sea off the Murmansk Region coast. The Gulf Stream brings the litter there from the United States shores, where it is buried, the expedition's leader Andrey Nagibin said.
"This dramatic increase in microplastics concentrations in Russian waters poses a real threat to the Arctic population and fisheries. This topic requires further discussion by the Russian environmental community. And further on, it has to be put on the international agenda. Surely, we will address relevant regulatory authorities, such as Rosprirodnadzor and the Environmental Prosecutor's Office. We will ask them to assess what is happening and expect necessary rulings. I may assume the response to the presented scientific research results will be appropriate," he said at the TASS press center.
Results of the scientific research in the Barents Sea's western part that continue since 2014 have shown an increase in microplastics concentrations in the seawater. In the summer of 2023, it was for the first time that microplastics concentrations near the Rybachy Peninsula and the Norwegian-Russian border exceeded 1 million particles per square kilometer, he continued. Noteworthy, the scientists have taken into account particles smaller than 250 microns. They tend to get accumulated in fish and other seafood, and consequently they enter the human body.
"It is absolutely obvious the Barents Sea must be protected from plastic litter. In fact, right now it plays the role of a natural filter for all solid litter that enters the Gulf Stream. First, we believe that the concept of "dumping" needs to be expanded. It should include not only the disposal of waste in marine waters, but also landfills that runoff into rivers or directly into seas. We urge for immediate actions to tighten control over the implementation of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter of 1972, known as the London Convention," he added.
A Russian researcher of pollution in the aquatic ecosystems of Baikal, the Yenisei, the Barents and Kara Seas, Maxim Tokarev, stressed the currents in the seas north of Europe move predominantly from west to east. Almost all the water moves from the North Atlantic in the form of many local currents, which are actually part of the general Gulf Stream movement. The Gulf Stream collects littered waters from the eastern coasts of the United States, the northern coasts of Britain and the European Union and brings them to the Norwegian and Barents Seas, which in a sense are a dead end.
"This explains the origin of growing microplastics in the Barents Sea's western part. In addition to the natural removal of small plastic litter from rivers into seas, it has become popular to dump litter from large urban agglomerations in marine waters. Instead of developing landfills, a number of countries in the Atlantic and Pacific have chosen not to limit too much the sinking of litter. Moreover, some landfills are located on islands, shores of bays or near mouths of large rivers, and thus a certain share of litter gets freely into water. In the United States, a number of landfills are on the east coast on the shore - to make it most convenient for barges to deliver household waste to them. The US East Coast's largest Fresh Kills Landfill for more than 20 years has been right on the coast, south of New York," the scientist said.