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Orchidean One · Costa Rica

What we bury today can power the country tomorrow.

Costa Rica is running out of places to put its trash. Orchidean One turns it into electricity, with technology proven around the world and air quality measured in plain sight.

Get it in 1 minute Does it pollute? A straight answer
  • Trash → electricity
  • 90% less volume
  • Live public emissions

The problem

Trash doesn’t disappear. We just move it around.

Almost everything we throw away ends up buried. The Central Valley’s landfills are filling up, trucks travel farther every year and municipalities pay more and more. 5

Understand the crisis
  • 4.000 t of trash produced in Costa Rica every day1
  • 8 in 10 tonnes end up buried in landfills2
  • <10% gets recycled or recovered3
  • 300+ km is how far some Central Valley trash travels, to Limón4
Concept illustration

The solution

A plant that turns trash into light.

Orchidean One takes the trash we bury today and turns it into electricity for the national grid. It’s a waste-to-energy plant — the same kind the world’s cleanest cities rely on.

  • Takes up to 1,500 tonnes of trash a day.*
  • Generates power for the equivalent of about 80,000 homes.*
  • Shrinks trash volume by about 90%.
  • Cleans its gases and publishes its readings on this site.

* Design estimate, to be confirmed by engineering studies.

Meet Orchidean One

How it works

Five steps. No mystery.

  1. 01

    Arrives sealed

    Closed trucks unload inside a sealed building.

  2. 02

    Gets transformed

    Above 850 °C, waste turns into heat.

  3. 03

    Makes electricity

    Heat makes steam, steam spins a turbine.

  4. 04

    Cleans the air

    Gases go through several cleaning stages before leaving.

  5. 05

    Uses what’s left

    Waste shrinks to about one tenth of its volume.

See inside the plant

Why it matters

What Costa Rica gains.

Less buried trash

Every tonne the plant takes is a tonne less in a landfill that’s already overflowing.

Power that doesn’t depend on rain

In 2024 there were blackouts and ICE spent hundreds of millions of dollars on fuel and imports. Trash is produced every day, rain or shine. 6

Less methane

Waste is almost 15% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. What isn’t buried doesn’t rot or release methane. 7

Protected rivers and soil

Fewer landfills means less leachate — the liquid rotting trash releases, which threatens rivers and aquifers.

Fewer trucks on the road

Treating trash near where it’s produced avoids trips of hundreds of kilometers, traffic and fuel.

Jobs for the region

Around 1,000 jobs during construction and some 150 permanent technical jobs.*

* Design estimate.

Not an experiment

The world already does it. Right next door.

There are more than 3,000 plants like this worldwide. Many sit in the heart of the planet’s cleanest, wealthiest cities. 8

  • Copenhagen, Denmark

    With a ski slope on the roof

    CopenHill opened in 2017 inside the city. Its roof is a ski slope and hiking trail. In 2023 it powered about 94,000 households and heated 87,000 apartments. 9

  • Vienna, Austria

    In the middle of the city

    The Spittelau plant, decorated by artist Hundertwasser, has run inside Vienna for over 50 years and heats more than 60,000 households. 10

  • Tokyo, Japan

    21 plants inside the city

    Tokyo’s 23 wards — one of the cleanest cities on Earth — have 21 plants. Japan has around 1,000. 11

  • Sweden

    Buries less than 1%

    Sweden barely landfills household waste: about half becomes energy. It’s so efficient it imports waste from other countries. 12

  • Switzerland

    Banned burying trash in 2000

    Since 2000, Switzerland has banned landfilling combustible waste. About 30 plants turn it into energy. 13

  • Singapore

    90% less volume

    An island with no room for landfills. Its plants cut waste volume by about 90%, and the ash goes to an offshore landfill. 14

And it doesn’t compete with recycling: Germany runs dozens of plants and still recycles or composts 69% of its municipal waste. 15

See examples worldwide

Air & health

Does it pollute? Here’s a straight answer.

Every industry has emissions. The right question is: compared to what? Today trash already pollutes — in landfills, rivers and backyard burning — and nobody measures it.

Orchidean One treats its gases in several stages, is designed to meet European Union limits — among the strictest in the world — and publishes its readings on this site. 16

The full answer Public monitoring

Today, with landfills

  • Methane escaping uncontrolled
  • Liquids threatening rivers
  • Smells, flies and vultures
  • No one publishes readings

With Orchidean One

  • Gases treated before release
  • European Union limits
  • Sealed building, no odors outside
  • Public readings online
Green Costa Rican valley with hills and trees

The name

Why “Orchidean”?

After the orchid, Costa Rica’s flower. The guaria morada is our national flower.

The orchid isn’t a parasite: it lives on the tree without taking anything from it, and makes use of what the forest lets pass by. That’s the idea behind Orchidean One: take what the country already threw away and give it back as something useful.

A plant for a green country.

Where and when

Fast, because it’s already proven.

Nothing needs inventing. The design already runs in hundreds of plants; here it’s adapted to our waste and our laws.

Site, permits and timeline
  • 8 a 10 haof land — a fraction of what a landfill consumes.*
  • ~30 monthsof construction once permits are approved.*
  • Industrial zoneaway from homes, near highways and the power grid.

* Design estimate, subject to studies and permits (SETENA and municipality).

Questions

What people ask.

Short answers, in plain words.

All questions
Does the plant pollute?

Every industry has emissions, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What matters is how much, compared to what, and who controls it.

Today, trash already pollutes: landfills release methane and leachate, and in many backyards trash is burned with no control at all. Orchidean One treats its gases in several stages before release, is designed to meet European Union limits — among the strictest in the world — and publishes its readings. See the full answer.

Will it smell?

No. Trash arrives in closed trucks and is unloaded inside a sealed building. The air inside is drawn into the furnace: odors don’t escape, they get burned. That’s why plants like these operate in the middle of Vienna, Copenhagen and Tokyo.

Does this kill recycling?

No. Recycling and composting come first; the plant takes what has no other use and is buried today. That’s exactly what Costa Rica’s Law 8839 sets out: avoid, reduce, reuse, recover… and bury only as a last resort.

The countries that recycle most also use these plants: Germany recycles or composts 69% of its municipal waste and turns much of the rest into energy.

Where will it be built?

The site is chosen through technical studies and public consultation. The criteria: an industrial or compatible zone under the local zoning plan, away from homes, outside protected areas and aquifer recharge zones, close to main highways and an electrical substation. See the criteria and timeline.

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Sources

  1. Teletica (2026). “Entre camiones, olores y basura: la otra cara del manejo de residuos en Costa Rica”.
  2. Delfino (marzo 2025). “OCDE: Costa Rica depende en exceso de los rellenos sanitarios”.
  3. Teletica (2025). “Salud busca elevar el reciclaje en Costa Rica: solo 4% de residuos se reutiliza”.
  4. La Nación. Ministra de Salud: parte de la basura de la GAM viaja más de 300 km hasta Limón.
  5. Semanario Universidad (2026). “Ministra advierte sobre vida útil de relleno de El Huazo”.
  6. Semanario Universidad. Contraloría sobre decisiones del ICE, racionamientos de 2024 y gasto en generación térmica e importaciones.
  7. PNUD Costa Rica. Inventario Nacional de Gases de Efecto Invernadero (2017, publicado 2022): residuos = 14,8% de las emisiones.
  8. Renewable Energy Magazine (2026), con datos de ecoprog: más de 3.100 plantas de valorización energética en el mundo (fin de 2025).
  9. Amager Resource Center (CopenHill), presentación ante el CESE de la UE, 2025.
  10. Wien Energie. Planta de Spittelau.
  11. Let’s Recycle. “Tokyo’s waste management system” (21 plantas en los 23 distritos).
  12. Nordic Investment Bank. “Sweden: waste too valuable to throw away”.
  13. Oficina Federal del Ambiente de Suiza (BAFU). Plantas de incineración de residuos municipales.
  14. National Environment Agency (NEA) de Singapur. Infraestructura de manejo de residuos sólidos.
  15. CEWEP. Tratamiento de residuos municipales en Europa, 2023 (Alemania: 69% reciclado o compostado).
  16. Directiva 2010/75/UE sobre emisiones industriales, Anexo VI, parte 3 (límites para incineración de residuos).