American Samoa will soon have a 20-million US dollar facility which will convert rubbish from the Futiga landfill to power.
The American Samoa Power Authority has signed a contract with a South Carolina company, ICRC, which plans to install the plant and hire about 20 employees to run it.
ASPA's executive director, Utu Abe Malae, says it will use a new technology called pyrolysis, which converts garbage into oil, which can be turned into power.
He says about 60 tonnes of solid waste will be turned into the equivalent of 2 megawatts of power.
"The concept is to use municipal solid waste for bio-synthetic oil and there's some other by-products. But basically the oil is what we are looking for to produce electricity. But also we want to reduce the amount of solid waste that is deposited at landfills."
Utu Abe Malae.
