Recycling culture at McMurdo Station in Antarctica

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Dumpster diving in Antarctica. Photo: Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun.

Huh. I find it odd that they actually have standing wooden electrical poles and brown, bare-rock mountain in Antarctica.

Then again, looking at the maps, McMurdo Station is established on an island, rather than the mainland, so that easily explains the mountains. I still find the above ground electrical wiring to be bizarre, though - I would have thought that trailing wires would be regularly ravaged by ice and storms and be difficult to maintain?

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Really fascinating. Thanks for posting this.

According to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Climate , the temperature usually is below freezing all year round, so no ice, just snow, which doesn’t build up on powers lines and pull them down.

Think of it as a desert… a really frickin’ cold desert.

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I spent the austral 2000-2001 summer there and used Skua central for costumes and props when I directed “Much Ado About Nothing” there. There was an article that season on Skua that gave a little more historical context to the situation (page 10 of http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/pastIssues/2000-2001/2000_12_10.pdf). You can also see the concept incorporated into a poster on Antarctic forms of property I did for a SCAR (Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research) meeting (http://www.apecs.is/en/research/virtual-poster-session/social-sciences/1094-jasondavis2009a). Glad to hear that other people are interested in it!

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