Nicaragua Waste Management Station Becomes Tourist Destination

El Rosario, a municipality with a population of 6,500 that’s 32 miles south of the capital of Managua, has a waste system that has become a national model.

The Mayor’s Office of El Rosario teamed with the Center for Social Studies and Promotion (CEPS) in 1998 to form a plan to create an ecological landfill to aid an area that lacks a trash collection system.

The goal was to turn trash into a source of income for the community through the treatment and recycling of waste, and to cut down on water pollution that was being caused by residents’ dumping garbage into streams.

The government spent $45,000 to purchase land and build the waste management system, but officials also have educated residents on the importance of using garbage to generate money that can spur economic development, El Rosario Mayor Evert Lopez said.

Fourteen years later, El Rosario’s waste management station opened in January 2012 as a botanical garden. The government is urging the community to enjoy the garden’s variety of trees and ornamental plants that are rooted in fertilizer composed of organic waste.

The project’s success has attracted not only local Rosarinos, but also visitors from other cities and countries.

Visitors can contact city hall and arrange for a free tour of the waste management station, which begins with a lesson in how the techniques used at the station can be applied to visitors’ home gardens.