TotallyToast

Good question!

Most of our garbage and recyclables is sorted, packaged up and taken out of station on the monthly resupply ship, and disposed of in Chile. Hazardous waste (such as motor oil, solvents, paint, and lab debris) is stored on station, and then once every two years the resupply ship takes it all the way back to the USA where it can be processed and disposed of safely.

Human and most food waste goes through a primary treatment process and is dispersed into an active tidal zone near station. (Translation; it's diluted, ground up and dumped into the ocean). Our impact is very minimal; it's only organic matter that is dispersed this way, and it's not a large volume. I think the ballpark is something like 80lbs per day for the whole station; by comparison, the penguin colonies on the nearby island of Torgeson produce 3-4 tons of guano per day at the peak of the season.

Any poultry food waste (chicken bones, egg shells, etc) and human medical waste is stored separately, and incinerated on the resupply ship once a month. This is due to concerns about any bird-born diseases infecting the local penguin and seabird populations.

. . . how often do we "mate"? WTF?

Male/female ratio is pretty even, but it depends on the time of year and how many scientists are on station. We mostly focus on marine biology, which is a VERY heavily female dominated field.

It fluctuates between 70/30 and 50/50 male/female. Dating happens, maybe not as freely as in the real world, but it happens.

Well that was set at McMurdo, a different station, but there are flamethrower jokes made frequently enough. :)

At least once a season we'll have "Bad Antarctic Movie Weekend", where we'll all watch "The Thing", "Alien vs. Predator", "Virus", and whatever other terrible Antarctic-related movies we can find. Usually while inebriated and throwing popcorn at the screen.

Hearing a humpback whale singing blew my mind the first time I heard it. The only people who don't care about saving the whales are the people who haven't been up close and personal with them in the wild.

It's EXTREMELY surreal, but probably not for the reasons you think. It doesn't feel isolating at all.

This place is anything but barren; we're in a small archipelago and it's teaming with wildlife. Not just penguins, but also seals, whales, and many different flighted seabirds. A could of Weddell seals have just given birth to pups a quarter mile from station, and we've been keeping track of their progress with telescopes and binoculars.

And for the most part we're all friends here and all get along really well, and do a good job of supporting each other if someone is getting homesick of having a rough go of things.