A few friends have mentioned waste removal from Antartica and how we make sure we don’t cause environmental damage through leaving waste all around the place. At conference they talked about the ongoing project for support staff going into the field to collect old waste from past projects. All waste created on base at Rothera is removed on the ships back to the UK for disposal – 80% of all waste on base is recycled.

A sewage treatment plant handles all the human waste and grey water produced on site with only cleaned water being discharged to sea conforming to European Union Bathing Water Standards. Solids from the plant are disposed of through a high efficiency two stage incinerator with residual ash contained and removed from Antarctica by ship.

Last week while I was in Scotland I was diving with David Barnes who is one of the most prolific scientists at British Antarctic Survey. I did a search on the BAS waste and found an interesting Press Release about a study he did back in 2002 which describes how plastics in the ocean combined with global climate change threatens biodiversity in Antartica. The paper was published in Nature.