A sunny beachside town in California might seem like the last place you’d find one of the most advanced waste-to-resource facilities in the United States, but in San Luis Obispo, against the backdrop of this popular vacation spot, this is exactly what was built in 2018 by global waste-to-energy company Hitachi Zosen Inova.

Kompogas SLO is the name of the plant, a reference to HZI’s proprietary anaerobic digestion system that is at the core of the facility, which takes in the county’s organic waste and turns it into electricity that is fed into the local grid. The resulting compost and fertilizer go back onto the land, making it a closed-loop, circular economy initiative.