Weekly FOGO

FOGO stands for, ‘Food Organics Garden Organics’ and is the green-lid bin at home. Anything that grows belongs in the green-lid FOGO bin. This includes all food waste (including meat, fish, bones, fruit, vegetables, bread), soiled paper products (shredded paper, paper towel, tissues and pizza boxes), compostable packaging and all garden organics (e.g. grass clippings). Material placed in the green-lid FOGO bin is collected by council contractors and taken to a commercial facility where it is turned into compost.

There are many benefits including:

• Reducing associated smell from FOGO bins, by collecting food and garden organics on a weekly basis
• Reducing associated landfill greenhouse gas emissions
• Increasing food recycling rates
• Assisting in growing the circular economy through the processing and return of nutrient rich compost back into our South Australian soils
• An extra 240 litres capacity for FOGO, especially useful for those with a big garden and during spring time

Nothing! Weekly FOGO bin collections will become the default service starting between July and September 2022. Households will receive a letter and welcome pack including a new kitchen caddy and roll of 75 compostable bags 2-3 weeks before Weekly FOGO begins in their area.

While Holdfast Bay residents are one of the best recyclers in South Australia, around a quarter of the material placed in the landfill bin is food waste. Food waste belongs in the green-lid FOGO bin.

Providing a weekly FOGO service (green-lid bin) and a fortnightly landfill (red-lid bin) service will actively encourage the community to place more food waste in their FOGO bin (where it belongs).

Increasing the amount of food waste sent to be composted is more environmentally sustainable than continuing to send food waste to landfill. Food processed as compost supports on average four times more jobs for our community than disposing to landfill.

All food scraps are good to FOGO:

• All fruits and vegetables including citrus
• Meat
• Bones
• Dairy
• Seafood

• Eggshells
• Teabags, tea leaves, and coffee grounds
• Bread and cake

You can also include:

• Tissues
• Paper towel
• Hair, including pet hair
• Pizza boxes
• Shredded paper
• Straw/hay
• Animal droppings

Only compostable bags can be used in the FOGO bin. Biodegradable bags should NOT be used in the FOGO bins as these disintegrate into micro-plastics.

We understand that not all households are the same. The weekly FOGO model gives choice and flexibility to households if they need a bigger bin. Households with more than five people and/or children in nappies may be eligible for a landfill bin or recycling bin upsize service.

We recommend residents try the Weekly FOGO model and after a few weeks if there are capacity concerns, contact customer service or email fogo@holdfast.sa.gov.au

Subsidies of 50% up to $50 will also be offered for the purchase of modern cloth nappies for those households with children in nappies, through the Green Living Subsidies program.

We understand that Christmas and New Year are busy times at home with lots of extra entertaining. For this reason, an additional weekly landfill bin collection will be available giving households three weeks in a row to place their landfill bin out for collection. This is in addition to weekly FOGO.

City of Holdfast Bay households are already putting 80% of their co-mingled recycling (glass, plastic, cardboard etc) into their yellow recycling bin. This compares to only 30% of food scraps going into the green FOGO bin. Therefore a move to weekly FOGO will have the biggest environmental benefit and create more jobs.

If your property has never had a FOGO green-lid wheelie bin, please call our Waste Hotline on (08) 8295 5077 to set up a new service. If your FOGO bin has been stolen please fill in a missing bin form.

Businesses and larger complexes over 10 units will stay on the old weekly landfill/fortnightly recycling and FOGO service unless they choose to opt-in by notifying council online, via email, or by calling customer service.

Over time, council will work with these groups to identify options to improve waste sustainability.

If you are worried about the smell of nappies or other hygiene products in your landfill bin follow these tips:

• Dispose of as much solid waste as possible before placing the nappy in the landfill bin

• Wrap dirty nappies tightly in a nappy bag

• Store your landfill bin in the shade

• Make sure your lid closes properly

• Place a small amount of odour control agent in the bottom of your bin to repel flies and odours. You can use natural products such as vinegar, eucalyptus/mint oils or crystals

• Try cloth nappies and or reusable menstrual items.

Households can also access up to $50 subsidies on cloth nappy and reusable menstrual items through our Green Living Subsidies program

When organic matter breaks down in landfill it creates methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The emissions associated with an additional bin truck are insignificant compared to the methane emissions saving made from the switch to weekly FOGO.

A truck filled with 25 tonnes of Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) can be driven 15,444km to a composting facility before it emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as that same truckload put into landfill.