The world’s forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate, whether it’s through deforestation or forest fires.
Around 18 million acres, that’s the size of Panama, are lost each year to deforestation, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.
Fortunately there are many eco-warriors out there doing all they can to save our earth’s natural habitat and the animals that call it home.
But in Costa Rica a controversial experiment in the mid-nineties offering a company an area of land to dump its food waste has actually bore fruit.
The results of this waste disposal 16 years on is being marvelled at by millions around the world.
It was in the mid-nineties when Costa Rican juice company Del Oro, which doesn’t use pesticides or insecticides, was given permission to dump its orange peel and pulp in a national park.
The company was only permitted to dump its fruit waste in “designated dumping zones marked as degraded, meaning the soil quality was poor and the forest couldn’t rebound like it used to,” according to modernfarmer.com
Before environmental issues were front page news Costa Rica was a world leader in environmental preservation.
And quite rightly so considering the staggering natural beauty of this rugged, rainforested Central American country.
Fifteen years later researchers from Princeton University decided to visit the area of Guanacaste to see if the 12,000 metric tons of fruit waste that was dumped had changed the landscape.
They discovered something quite extraordinary: “richer soil, more tree biomass, greater tree-species richness and greater forest canopy closure” in the dumping area, according to a Princeton press release.
Princeton Environmental Institute
“Orange is the New Green! Princeton Universityresearchers found that 1,000 truckloads of orange juice byproduct regenerated a Costa Rican rainforest after 16 years. The research demonstrates the potential of agricultural waste to restore forests and mitigate carbon at low cost. “
The area was completely transformed, what was once considered wasteland was now a thriving green paradise.
Princeton recently published their findings from this incredible experiment, which was not without controversy.
Thanks to something as seemingly insignificant as fruit peelings, led ecologists to discover something that could help change the face of other areas we thought were lost to deforestation.
Hopefully, this will help inspire other projects in the future.
Nature is something precious that we have to take care of for future generations.
Please share to inspire others to think differently about how we dispose of our waste and look after our beautiful planet.