The Ministry of Defense has gone 30% beyond their plan for 2016 to clean up the Arctic environment, RIA Novosti reported, citing Deputy Defense Minister, General of the Army Dmitry Bulgakov.

"The ministry's environmental clean-up elements are close to completing the 2016 schedule of tasks in the Arctic. Personnel have collected and prepared almost 5,800 metric tons of scrap metal for removal, which is about 30% beyond the plan for this year," he said.

According to Bulgakov, some 200 service personnel are involved in clearing the Arctic of environmental waste.

This year, the work was carried out on the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, Kotelny and Wrangel islands, plus in the Krasnoyarsk Territory: in the area of responsibility of the Northern Fleet, in the Central and Eastern military districts, and the responsibility zone of the 12^th Main Directorate of the Defense Ministry. The effort will run through the end of September. According to the Defense Ministry, the Arctic is expected to be cleared of garbage and scrap by 2020.

Over 78 hectares of land were cleaned in the Arctic in 2015.