Any leftover solid waste is shipped back to the US on cargo ships. The McMurdo Station is the largest research stationResearch stations are facilities where scientific investigation, collection, analysis and experimentation occurs. A research station is a facility that is built for the purpose of conducting scientific research. There are also many types of research stations including: biological field stations, space stations etc.https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Research_stationhuman wasteThe term "human waste" is used in the general media to mean several things, such as sewage, sewage sludge, blackwater - in fact anything that may contain some human faeces. In the stricter sense of the term, human waste is in fact human excreta, i.e. urine and faeces, with or without water being mixed in.https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Human_waste
Also in Minimising waste and pollution in Antarctica
The dumping of waste or chemicals on land or at sea, or open burning of rubbish all being prohibited by the Environmental Protocol. Wastes are separated at source and then processed by shredding or compacting to reduce their volume before disposal or recycling.
Under the Antarctic Treaty System, an international agreement to protect the continent, waste of any kind—garbage, human poop, you name it—can't be left on the continent.
In general, wastewater discharged from Antarctic outfalls predominantly flows along the shore, with less evidence for dispersal out to sea12, 17. Exceptions are for offshore disposal sites on ice shelves or permanent sea ice such as the airfields at McMurdo Station18.
In Antarctica, you can't pee wherever you'd like, due to environmental protection laws. We can only pee, or dump our pee, in designated areas, marked with a 'pee flag. ' The coordinates of the pee flags are logged in a database.
However, in Antarctica, taking anything is banned. This includes rocks, feathers, bones, eggs and any kind of biological material including traces of soil. Taking anything man-made is also completely banned, as some might actually be research equipment.
Because of the location of Antarctica and because the rest of the year there isn't enough sunlight at the poles for the satellites to see the land, images can only be taken from December through March, the summer season.
Oddly enough, there are very few smells in Antarctica. Ice and snow have no smell, and in the cold temperatures, everyday objects hold onto their aromatic chemicals. So that when you stumble into an aroma, it stands out like a black volcanic rock on a snowfield.
Amazing Penguin Fact! Nearly three percent of the ice in Antarctic glaciers is penguin urine.
"Antarctica appears to be isolated from southward dispersal of microorganisms and nutrient deposition from southern continents," said Mr Hill. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Antarctica is not considered a no-fly zone because it is not illegal to fly over Antarctica. However, there is no reason to fly over Antarctica because it is not in the way to any airports and because it is not an independent country.
The main reason why planes don't fly over Antarctica is due to ETOPS (Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards) which places limitations on how far a twin-engine aircraft can fly from diversion airports.
To keep Antarctica as pristine as possible all impacts from human presence have to be kept to an absolute minimum, this includes human wastes. The field camp has an out-doors toilet that consists of a 'poo bucket' with a polystyrene lid and a 'pee barrel' which has a funnel on top.
The levels of pollutants in Antarctica are, in general, lower than elsewhere in the world. This applies to those in the air, water, sediments, animals and plants, and is primarily because there is less industry and farming in the Southern Hemisphere.
There are still large amounts of rubbish including metal items, oil and other fuels and plastics in a variety of places in Antarctica which are where there were previously scientific stations occupied in either the short or long-term.
Antarctica would have no settlements, no population, and no government.
The NOAA estimates the oceans at 321,003,271 cubic miles or 1.338e21 L (1.3 sextillion). Dividing those out and you get 0.0002%, or 1 in 500,000 parts Human pee.
The South Pole sits at 9,301 feet and the average elevation of Antarctica is 7,546 feet. This makes Antarctica the highest continent in the world and means there is less effectively available oxygen to breathe in Antarctica than on any other continent.
If all the Antarctic ice melted it would raise the average sea level by about 70 m (230 feet) worldwide. This would change the map of the world as we know it as all coastlines would flood including the loss of all coastal cities in the world.
Gravity is always pulling your whole body and everything around you in the direction of Earth's core. Whether you are in Antarctica, at the equator, or anywhere else on Earth, if you're upright with your feet on the ground, you feel (and you are) right-side up.
The vast majority of Antarctica is also in low resolution due to the bright, often featureless, ice and snow making high-resolution imaging both difficult and largely unnecessary.
The scientists found the secret subterranean habitat tucked away beneath the Larsen Ice Shelf — a massive, floating sheet of ice attached to the eastern coast of the Antarctic peninsula that famously birthed the world's largest iceberg in 2021.
Oh, and yes, sorry, Google Maps uses a close variant of the Mercator map projection, so it hardly show areas around the poles, you only can see the "peeled" version of the Antarctica (see the small world map on the right).