The armed forces have left behind large amounts of rubbish in the national park in Finnmark

It has been over a month since the military exercise ended, but the rubbish is still lying around, writes NRK and Altaposten.

Turma food packaging, petrol cans, bio bags, soda and beer cans and half-eaten fennel legs are among what is strewn about.

It was reindeer herding Sami Johan Mathis Kemi who first reported the litter, writes NRK.

Kemi usually picks up trash he finds, but this time it was too much.

– I have two sleds behind me when I drive, but I wouldn’t have had room. It was so much. We pulled up a dozen petrol cans. We couldn’t pull up everyone in this crowd. We had to give up, he says.

One of those he got help from was Stig Arvid Kristensen. He is shocked by the littering.

– Stabbursdalen is a natural gem that is used by many during the winter. But now it doesn’t look like Stabbursdalen. It’s a pig’s path, says Kristensen to Altaposten.

– I am shocked and angry. That it is possible to behave in that way, he says.

Corporal Johnny Karlsen at the Norwegian Armed Forces’ operational headquarters confirms that the rubbish originates from exercise Nordic Response.

The fact that the rubbish has not been collected is a failure in the routines, he says.

– The most important thing is that we clean up after ourselves, and that it is done as quickly as possible, says Karlsen to NRK.

He cannot say anything concrete about when this will happen.