“Plastic in a Bottle” afloat again 23 June 2021Plastics in the ArcticАрктические данныеОкеанЗагрязнителиФинляндияНорвегияРабочая группа по защите арктической морской среды In September 2019, the Arctic Council’s Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME) Working Group launched its first “Plastic in a Bottle”, a capsule equipped with a GPS transmitter, tracking the trajectory of plastics in the ocean. Now, PAME has teamed up with Wageningen University & Research, the Finnish Environment Institute and the Norwegian Polar Institute to launch three further capsules. The goal is to see how plastics potentially makes its way from the North Sea and the Baltic Sea into Arctic waters – and to raise awareness about the issue of marine plastic pollution. On 6 April 2020, PAME’s first “Plastic in a Bottle” washed ashore on the Isle of Tiree in Scotland. Since Iceland’s Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources released the bottle from an Icelandic Coast Guard vessel, the bright yellow capsule had covered a distance of 7,000 kilometers over 207 days. The GPS transmitter within the capsule allowed PAME, researchers across the Arctic and the public to follow its journey – past the east coast of Greenland and across the northern part of the Atlantic until it landed on the beach of Tiree. However, this was only the beginning of the journey of PAME’s “Plastic in a Bottle” project. Launched during the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2019-2021), the initiative continues into the Russian Chairmanship and seeks to explore new marine litter highways in Northern Europe. Since the end of May, three further capsules will drift with ocean currents and waves to yet unknown destinations.