Let's go weekly FOGO!
Our trial of Weekly Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO) collections commenced on Monday 1 May 2023 with 1,000 households in Seaton and Tennyson.
During the 12 month trial, participating households will have a switch in their bin collections:
- FOGO (green lid) bin will be collected weekly
- General waste (blue lid) bin will change to a fortnightly collection
The recycling (yellow lid) bin will continue to be collected fortnightly.
Making the switch to weekly FOGO collection will help to support our community to put food scraps into this bin, along with garden waste.
We thank Green Industries SA for enabling this trial through their funding.
Provide your feedback on Weekly FOGO
The 12 month Weekly FOGO trial is almost half way. We want to know how residents in the trial areas in Seaton and Tennyson are finding it.
Didn’t take part in the trial? If you didn’t take part, we’d still like to ask you a few questions to help inform what our 3 bin collection service will look like in the future.
Complete our short survey to tell us what you think.
What is FOGO?
FOGO is a short way of saying ‘Food Organics, Garden Organics’ which means your food scraps and garden clippings. This isn't all FOGO stands for, it includes everything that can go in your green bin:
- all food waste (meat, bones, cheese and dairy, vegetable scraps and bread)
- soiled paper products (shredded paper, paper towel, tissues and pizza boxes)
- compostable packaging (must be certified to Australian standard AS 4736)
- all garden organics (grass clippings, leaves etc.)
The trial includes 1,000 residents in the areas of Seaton and Tennyson, all with Tuesday bin collections. Households in the trial area will be notified by mail. Information on how to opt-out will be provided in the lead up to the launch for households who do not wish to be part of the trial.
The trial had parameters to meet including bin collection day, amount of households in each area and distinct demographics. The two areas within Seaton and Tennyson were chosen as they met these requirements.
Recent audits show that around 30-40% of material placed in our residents blue landfill bin is food waste. This material should be going in the green lid FOGO bin.
Providing a weekly FOGO (green lid) collection service and fortnightly landfill (blue lid) collection service encourages residents to place their food waste into their FOGO bin.
The weekly FOGO collections will help our community increase the amount of food waste they recycle as this bin will be collected more frequently. This has environmental benefits as we can process this material into high-quality compost product and avoid this material ending up in landfill which produces harmful greenhouse gases. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is a key target for Net Zero.
There are many benefits of a weekly FOGO collection including:
- Increasing food waste recycling rates.
- Reducing associated landfill greenhouse gas emissions.
- Supporting the local circular economy through the processing and return of nutrient rich compost back to South Australian soils.
- Providing an additional 240L capacity for FOGO, which is especially useful for those with larger gardens.
- Reducing associated smell from the FOGO bin by collecting it weekly.
The trial will provide important data on diversion and contamination rates which will provide insight into how a FOGO collection service could possibly be implemented across the City of Charles Sturt in the future.
Participating households will receive support throughout the trial through FOGO education materials, an updated collection calendar, a kitchen caddy with compostable bags and a FOGO bin for households that don’t already have one.
We recognise that not all households are the same, that's why we have provided choice and flexibility for householders who give the trial a go.
Households that wish to be part of the trial and meet the below requirements may be eligible for an upsized landfill bin or recycling bin.
- have more than 5 people in the household and/or
- resident in nappies and/or
- a medical condition
You can request an upsized bin here.
We recommend that residents first give the Weekly FOGO model a go. If after a few weeks you find you have capacity concerns, please call us or email us. We're here to support you through this trial.
We'd love for you to give the trial a go and we're here to support you on how it can work for you. Just give us a call and we can chat through your concerns.
If you really don't think this trial is for you right now, you can choose to ‘opt-out’ and remain on the standard three bin service (weekly landfill, fortnightly green organic and recycling collections).
To opt-out, please complete our online form.
This trial was endorsed by Council and grant funding from Green Industries SA accepted at the Council Meeting on 15 March 2022.
We shared this exciting news with our community, read our announcement Weekly Green Bin/Food Waste Collection Trial.