Vaiala's long-awaited project with the UNDP under their Small Grant Project was given the go-ahead after two years. 

The 50 rubbish bins costing $29,000 have been placed along the Vaiala seafront. The official handover took place on Saturday.

Vaiala community leader Fofogamua Sailo Tulifau in his remarks said this was an opportunity to keep Vaiala clean and ensure that plastics are not entering the ocean.

"The purpose of this project is to ensure that we keep our surroundings and environment clean. We have a lot of tourists and overseas visitors," he said. 

"This was a long awaited project. We applied for it in August 2022 but it arrived in August 2024. Despite the long wait, we are grateful and happy that it finally arrived."

The 50 rubbish bins were distributed to every family in the village and in front of the Vaiala village. Their village is one of the many tourist attraction.  

Fofogamua also took the opportunity to stress the importance of keeping the environment clean not only for their village but for Samoa as a whole. He hopes that with the bins being distributed to every family in the village it will be of good use for them in terms of living a hygienic lifestyle.

He acknowledged the assistance from UNDP in helping them get this project. According to Mulitalo, there are three colours for their bins. The blue and yellow are the colours of Nauru's flag as they are hosting them for the CHOGM meeting, and the green colour represents life.

The Samoa Conversation Society once said that in Samoa, about 7,000 tonnes of plastic is consumed each year, making up about 16 per cent of the country's waste and in the absence of recycling, most go into the landfill or litter.