Landfills are generally bad for the environment and the health of the people. They are typically filled with toxic substances that can leach into the earth and cause devastating problems for everyone.

One Costa Rican degraded land is a bit different.

In 1997, Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs came up with an interesting way to help save their troubled tropical forest ecosystems. Their idea involved orange peels!

The pair reached out to Del Oro, a fruit juice company operating in Costa Rica.

The company owned the land bordering the Guanacaste Conservation Area. It was located in the northwestern corner of the region.

They reached an agreement.

The deal involved Del Oro dumping some of its agricultural wastes in specified park areas with really poor soil quality. They were told not to use any form of insecticide or pesticide. Additionally, they were only allowed to dump orange pulp and peels.

A rival fruit company wasn’t too happy about the arrangement.

TicoFrut went after Del Oro. It even sued the company, claiming that what they were doing was dangerous. For them, Del Oro was throwing tons of rotting peels and attracting flies in the area. Plus, for them, what Del Oro was doing was unfair.

Around 12,000 metric tons of orange peels and pulps were dumped.

Even after the outrage faded, the orange peels remained in the area. About 16 years later, people were shocked to discover what happened next.

In 2013, a Princeton graduate scouted the area.

Timothy Treuer was researching topics that were unrelated to the research. He decided to look up the area with orange peels and was surprised to see the results.

The sign placed on the area was covered with vines.

Plus, the land was so densely filled with woody trees that Tim and his team had a hard time looking for it. They had to do dozens of site visits to finally locate it.

In an interview with Princeton University, he shared:

“It was so completely overgrown with trees and vines that I couldn’t even see the 7-foot-long sign with bright yellow lettering marking the site that was only a few feet from the road.”

Knowing that they had to do more studies, the researchers went back to the area in 2014.

There, they found a land that’s completely lush and revitalized. It was no longer a barren land. Instead, it was rich with woody plant species. Plus, the lifeless soil was transformed into a rich and loamy mixture.

For the researchers, dumping massive amounts of nutrient-loaded organic waste helped boost the fertility of the land.

And from there, an idea came up: If other companies do a similar act, we could have more richly vegetated land areas. It can be a huge help in removing the harmful carbon dioxide in the environment and greatly improve the planet’s atmosphere. Plus, there’ll be more areas for animals and humans to enjoy.

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Source: Princeton University, Scientific American, YouTube-incredible moments