Menu
Home（https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/）
Highlights（https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/to-do）
Cleaning up Svalbard
Cleaning up Svalbard
Join Oceanwide Expeditions in cleaning Svalbard’s coasts — remove plastic waste and protect Arctic wildlife together!
Region: The Arctic（https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/the-arctic）
Destinations: Svalbard（https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/the-arctic/spitsbergen）
Giving back by taking away
Clean Up Svalbard is a coastal waste-removal program created by the governor of Svalbard in coordination with AECO（https://www.aeco.no/）, the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators.
As a founding member of the program, Oceanwide Expeditions frequently participates in its beach cleanups. In August of 2019, for example, cleanups conducted from our vessel Hondius removed 1,000 kg (2,200 pounds) of waste（https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/oceanwide-expeditions-cleanup-removes-1-000-kg-of-plastic-from-svalbard） from Spitsbergen’s beaches, about half the weight of an average car. This trash consisted of fishing weights, shreds of net, and various smaller plastics.
During one of our 2022 Arctic cruises, we did a spontaneous cleanup on Wahlbergøya. During a hike, we stumbled upon a large bay covered in plastic waste. Together with a group of our passengers, we collected so much waste that we couldn’t fit it all into our bags, so we filled an entire Zodiac instead. We estimated we removed at least 250 kg (over 600 pounds) of waste（https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/wahlbergoya-beach-cleanup-results-in-250-kg-of-rubbish-collected） from this location. Once we got back to Longyearbyen, we put it all into the designated Cleanup Svalbard bin.
Picture by Governor of Svalbard
The efforts of participating polar tour operators like Oceanwide is significant, accounting for about three to four of the roughly 20 tons of waste Clean Up Svalbard removes from the beaches of Svalbard each year.