Pilot collection services for food organic and garden organic (FOGO) waste recycling will start in selected Belconnen suburbs later this year, with the ACT Government allocating $4 million in the upcoming 2021-22 Budget.
The food waste collection service will be trialled in the Belconnen Town Centre, Bruce, Macquarie and Cook. Further funding in the 2021-22 ACT Budget will be used to progress facilities for processing food and organic waste into high-quality compost.
The FOGO collection services aim to reduce waste going to landfill and turn household scraps into valuable compost.
The ACT Greens have celebrated the pilot as a win, after a 14-year campaign, for all Canberrans who care about ending waste, growing a circular economy and taking real climate action.
“We could not be happier that the ACT Government is finally investing in keeping food waste out of landfill,” said Jo Clay MLA, ACT Greens spokesperson on Circular Economy and representative of Ginninderra, where the FOGO trial will begin. “This has been ACT Greens policy for well over a decade.
“Since moving from the recycling industry myself to become an MLA, I’ve been working with local organic processors and the Minister to ensure we get a good system in place. With the low contamination rates we’ve seen in Canberra’s garden waste bins, I’m confident our community will be able to do this well too.”
Ms Clay said the ACT Greens have been calling for specific actions on food waste in their Parliamentary Agreements with Labor as far back as 2008. In 2012, then-waste spokesperson Caroline Le Couter said, “Household organic waste is the fundamental challenge for waste management in the ACT”.
“For too long, food waste in our city has been left rotting in landfill, when it could better be turned into organic material to help us grow food, live more sustainably, and cut the Territory’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Ms Clay said.
“More than a third of waste in Canberra’s household bins is made up of discarded food. Reducing food waste in the first place, then processing what’s left to enrich our soils will keep over 40,000 tonnes of waste out of landfill,” she said.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the FOGO pilot would allow Canberrans to make better choices to stop waste going to landfill and take everyday action on climate change.
“About a third of our residential garbage bin contents are food waste which currently goes to landfill and contributes to our emissions,” Mr Barr said.
“Food waste breaks down in the airless conditions in our landfill and emits methane, an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. The ACT has a target to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and achieve net zero emissions by 2045 so reducing these emissions from our waste stream is an important part of the Government’s action on climate change.”
Minister for Transport and City Services Chris Steel said the pilot suburbs have been selected because of their mix of single residential dwellings and multi-unit properties.
“The FOGO service will enable Canberrans to take everyday action on climate change by removing valuable organics from landfill and helping to reduce waste emissions by up to 30 per cent,” Mr Steel said.
“A focus of the pilot will be to look at contamination rates, and how FOGO collection can be implemented successfully across a mix of single residential houses and multi-unit apartment dwellings before we roll this out the service to the rest of Canberra.”
As part of the pilot, green lidded bins will change from garden waste only to FOGO bins. Participating households that do not already have a green waste bin will be provided one free of charge to maximise waste diverted from landfill.
All participating households will be given an easy-to-use kitchen caddy with compostable liners as a convenient way to collect their food scraps. The food scraps in the compostable bags can then be emptied into the FOGO bin along with garden waste.
Waste collection for single-residential households in the pilot suburbs will change, with green FOGO bins collected weekly instead of fortnightly, and garbage bins collected fortnightly instead of weekly.
“The approach for the pilot will be similar to other local councils that have already adopted FOGO and we will be educating Belconnen residents in the pilot area on how to make this change,” Mr Steel said.
“Participating households will be contacted by way of letter and we will work closely with residents to support their transition to the FOGO service ahead of the pilot commencing later this year.”
The FOGO pilot is intended to continue through to when the service is rolled out to all Canberra households in 2023. Recent survey results shows that 92 per cent of Canberrans support a fully-fledged FOGO collection service in the ACT.
For more information on the FOGO pilot, visit www.act.gov.au/fogo
