For anyone who has ever packed out a rubbish bag from a remote campsite, the idea of managing waste at the ends of the earth carries a particular weight. Antarctica and the Arctic are among the most logistically demanding places on the planet to work, let alone to keep clean. That challenge sits at the heart of a new book from Türkiye that examines how scientific expeditions to the polar regions can be run with far less environmental impact, and it arrives just as Türkiye prepares to host COP31.
The book, “Zero Waste in the Polar Regions,” was launched on 7 August and prepared with TÜBİTAK’s (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye) Polar Research Institute. It is the work of The Zero Waste Foundation, and it applies zero waste principles directly to the practicalities of Arctic and Antarctic fieldwork, from how expeditions are planned to how materials, energy, water and logistics are handled once teams are on the ice.
Fieldwork without a footprint
What makes the publication notable for anyone interested in outdoor science and expedition ethics is its scope. Rather than treating waste management as an afterthought, the book pushes the conversation upstream, to how research trips are designed before a single sample is collected. Eighteen articles, written by scientists with direct polar research experience, cover the scientific, technical, administrative and communication dimensions of applying zero waste thinking in some of the most fragile and remote environments on Earth.
The emphasis throughout is on prevention rather than clean-up: reducing waste before it is generated, using resources efficiently, and limiting the overall environmental footprint of research activity in places where there is no easy way to dispose of anything. For expedition teams and field scientists, that means rethinking everything from packaging and equipment choices to energy use and transport logistics long before departure.
The book frames the polar regions as critical indicators of global climate change, noting that environmental shifts observed there carry consequences well beyond the Arctic and Antarctic themselves. That framing gives the work a relevance that extends past the ice sheets and into the wider debate about how humans move through, and impact, wild places generally.
Mehmet Fatih Kacır, Minister of Industry and Technology of Türkiye, said the publication brought together two national initiatives that both began in 2017: Türkiye’s zero waste programme and its polar science efforts. “The Zero Waste initiative launched under the leadership of H.E. Emine Erdoğan has grown step by step from a national initiative into a global one,” he said.
He added: “At the same time, we began organising scientific expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Türkiye, enabling Turkish scientists to strengthen the country’s presence in polar research. Through this book, these two initiatives have come together.”
Eighteen voices from the ice
The contributors behind the book’s 18 chapters have all conducted polar research themselves, giving the study a practitioner’s perspective rather than a purely theoretical one. That matters for readers who spend time in demanding outdoor environments, since the recommendations are grounded in the realities of working where supply chains are long, weather windows are short and every kilogram carried in has to be carried out again.
The study also reflects the wider zero waste vision advanced by H.E. Emine Erdoğan, Founder of the Zero Waste Movement, Chair of the UN High-Level Advisory Board on Zero Waste and Honorary President of the Zero Waste Foundation. Her involvement links the polar-specific research back to a broader national and international zero waste agenda that has expanded significantly since it began.
For outdoor and expedition communities, the book’s central argument, that waste reduction has to be built into planning from the outset rather than managed after the fact, echoes principles already familiar from Leave No Trace practice on a much larger, scientific scale. Applied to national research programmes operating in Antarctica and the Arctic, that same logic could shape how future polar logistics, resupply and fieldwork are designed.
A London bridge to polar practice
Ten days after the book’s launch, on 17 August, the Zero Waste Foundation and London Climate Action Week (LCAW) signed a cooperation protocol covering climate action, zero waste and the circular economy. The agreement establishes an institutional partnership aimed at strengthening knowledge exchange, joint initiatives and international dialogue between the two organisations.
The protocol was signed by Samed Ağırbaş, President of the Zero Waste Foundation and COP31 High-Level Climate Champion, and Climate Action Founder and CEO Nick Henry. “After this cooperation protocol, I hope we will carry out strong work and organize joint events at COP31 and London Climate Action Week,” Ağırbaş said.
London Climate Action Week brings together government, cities, business, finance, academia, civil society and local communities, and the new agreement gives Türkiye’s polar and zero waste research a direct line into that network. COP31, which Türkiye is set to host, provides the wider diplomatic backdrop, though the immediate focus of the partnership is practical exchange between the Foundation and the LCAW network rather than any single set-piece event.
Taken together, the polar research book and the London agreement point to an approach that treats zero waste as something broader than recycling or bin management. It is being framed instead as a design principle for how research, and by extension other outdoor and field-based activity, is planned and carried out in places where the environmental stakes, and the practical difficulty of managing waste, are at their highest.
