Skat – Costa Rica

Swiss Partners

Skat Consulting Ltd., St. Gallen
www.skat.ch
Sandra Méndez Fajardo

Project Type:

Pilot project

Technology:

Resource efficiency

Country:

Costa Rica

Project Status:

Completed

Project Start:

2019

End of Project:

2022

Contract:

2019.05

Swiss Contribution

Skat Consulting Ltd., is an independent consulting firm and competence center in international cooperation and humanitarian aid. Founded in 1978, the company has many years of proven experience in technology, training, project management and business matters. For this project, Skat Consulting has been supported by other Swiss experts from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).

Description

The districts of San Isidro El General and Daniel Flores of the Pérez Zeledón municipality operate one of the largest composting plants in Costa Rica. It started its operation in 2012 and currently receives 8-10 tons of organic waste per day. The plant’s processes are technically insufficient, and the marketing of the resulting products is limited. Through cooperation with experts from Switzerland, the participating Costa Rican partners (Acepesa, Municipality of Pérez Zeledón, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, National Union of Local Governments, University of Costa Rica San Pedro) seek advice for technical improvements in the composting process, as well as the improvement and diversification of the final product, in order that the economic viability will be assured in the long-term.

Results

Thanks to the Swiss know-how transfer and trainings, the compost production processes were optimised, the produced compost’s quality was improved and the amount of compost created was increased from 100t/month to 246t/month. Various webinars with relevant stakeholders – at times with the Swiss Embassy’s participation, as well as communication and awareness-raising activities for sustainable compost production were implemented.

Impacts

270t of CO2 per year have been saved. About 50% of the compost is being sold (and a rise in sales is trending). Through the effective involvement of the Agriculture and Environment Ministries and the Institute for Community Development and Advisory Services (IFAM), as well as through information events and the various information documents (best practices and guidelines), it was possible to stimulate interest of various organisations and institutions. The pilot Pérez Zeledón municipality has signed five cooperation agreements with cooperatives and regional offices of the know-how transfer.  In addition, the four municipalities of Esparza, Golfito, Coto Brus and Pococí have asked Pérez Zeledón for technical support to improve their own composting facilities.