By Michelle Costa, Local News 8 Reporter

BURLEY - Can you imagine the day that homes are powered by garbage? It may not be too long into the future. A Southeast Idaho landfill is turning trash into gas.

The Milner Butte landfill is located just outside of Burley.

They've figured out a way to use the methane gas emitted from garbage as it decomposes and are converting it to power.

Garbage plus pipelines equals power? It may seem like a hard concept to grasp.

But, for environmental specialist, Josh Bartlome, it's a dream come true.

"When you throw trash in the landfill after 5-7 years it decomposes and it produces gases," explained Josh Bartlome, Environmental Specialist.

He continues,"We're not letting all of those gases go back into the atmosphere and burning them off so we're getting rid of them and it helps with clean air. We don't pollute in it. Plus, we get our energy as well so if you can kill two birds with one stone why not?”

"We've been putting the landfill gas lines in from day one. We always knew that we were going to have to have a landfill gas system,” said Bartlome.

It's actually pretty basic; there is 600 tons of garbage which come into the landfill every day. That gas is pulled into the wells, which goes down to the main system down below.

"In May, we started putting in the pipelines. We've got 21 horizon wells in there and they came in and they connected everything together,” said Bartlome.

Every day, Bartlome checks to make sure things are in order. The data is recorded every ten seconds.

"It's a short process, but in the long-run, it's going to pay off and it's going to be a good deal for everybody,” said Bartlome.

While the methane gas emitted now is visible, in the future, they're hoping it will run directly to power around 2,200 homes.

The system is still undergoing lots of testing. They want to track the information for at least five months before they have the system completely up and running.

It cost around $1.1 million for the entire project.