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The former dumping site of orange waste in a Costa Rican national park has transformed into a lush forest.
In 1997, Del Oro, a Costa Rican fruit juice manufacturer known for not using pesticide and insecticide in its products, teamed up with two University of Pennsylvania ecologists for an experiment that aimed to determine whether or not adding biomass could bring degenerated soil back to life.
As Del Oro acquired a piece of land within the boundaries of a Costa Rican national park, it agreed to donate parts of the land to the park. In return, Del Oro would be allowed to dump orange waste such as peels and pulps in some of the park’s areas. However, these areas only included those with poor soil quality and low chances of revival.
A year after the experiment began, around 12,000 metric tons of orange peels had already been dumped in the designated zones. Not long after, a lawsuit was filed against Del Oro by competitor TicoFrut, which claimed that dumping orange waste was damaging to the environment. The Supreme Court of Costa Rica decided in favor of TicoFrut and ordered the immediate cessation of the project.
More than a decade after the project’s termination, a group of Princeton University researchers inspected the dumping site and discovered that its soil was richer and its vegetation was more diverse compared to other parts of the park.
Although the area’s drastic recovery remains a mystery, the researchers speculated that orange peel nutrients were a contributing factor. They remain hopeful that this phenomenon will be a stepping stone to restoring tropical forests.