Far north, almost as far as you can get, the cleanup window is short. The further north you go, the more demanding the weather conditions. From June to August, intensive cleanup work is carried out. So intensive is it that one operator – Miljørederiet, which is part ofCleanup Norway in Timequite simply camp outdoors in all kinds of weather to avoid travelling for miles every day to and from the cleanup areas.
Effective – yes, hard-wearing – yes as well.
A motley crew
The coastal cleaners working for Miljørederiet are used to sleeping and spending long periods outdoors. They can quickly prepare meals over an open fire or a camping stove, and they know exactly how to pitch a tent to avoid the worst of the wind. Hans Petter Frøhaug is team leader and normally works as a vocational lecturer in Arctic outdoor life and nature guiding at the University of Tromsø, and during the summer he works as a coastal cleaner.
Miljørederiet also has another important resource, field manager Paul Olav Røsbø (Pølle), who normally works as a senior physician/Commander in the Royal Norwegian Navy Medical Service at the Army medical centre in Porsangmoen, as well as an occupational health, maritime, petroleum and diving doctor in Finnmark. He is the sort of person who can dive a few metres down to retrieve a boat propeller with nothing more than a pair of swimming goggles.
This brings together a team of people with diverse backgrounds and specialist expertise – ranging from outdoor life and teaching to medicine, diving and defence. A varied group on paper,but in practice a coordinated team that removes plastic from our coastline.
Everything must go
There is plastic that has been blown inland and buried beneath the heather several hundred metres above sea level. Dry and brittle plastic crunches underfoot wherever you go. These are beaches that have never previously been cleaned, even though local residents, through the village association, do what they can to keep areas they frequently use clean.
