Cleaning the Arctic / #Russia

Cleaning the Arctic /
#Russia

'This place has magnetic attraction. Many people who’ve been here return again and again. It may look devastated, a sad sight, but there’s something special about it', says Mikhail Makarov, Head of Murmansk Marine Biological Institute. Right after graduation he went to Dalnie Zelentsy, a rural locality in Russia's Arctic. For almost 40 years Mikhail and his colleagues research how plastic breaks down into trace elements and how fragile Arctic nature can be protected from microplastics spreading further into the sea, contaminating natural resources. Scientists try to find bacteria that can eat plastic. What have they come up with so far?