With thousands of Brisbane residents, including Stones Corner locals, participating in the food waste recycling pilot, calls have been renewed to fully implement the Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO) service in the city.
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In Australia, around 70 councils are already implementing FOGO, allowing residents to easily dispose of a large variety of organic waste. It’s similar to recycling, but rather than repurposing paper and glass, it finds a new life for food scraps, garden clippings and other green waste.
Once the food and green waste have been collected, Council’s contractor will bring it to a resource recovery centre and then to a green waste recycling partner’s facility where it will be converted into compost and then used in Brisbane by local farmers, urban growers and local businesses.
Whilst participation is only optional in most cities, local governments encourage residents to participate in the FOGO service as it has many environmental benefits.
One of the advantages of going FOGO is reducing the city’s footprint, as food waste in Brisbane currently makes up approximately 30 percent of household general waste bins.
Labor for Brisbane, which launched a petition urging Council to adopt FOGO, highlighted some other benefits, such as creating thousands of jobs (three times as many jobs as traditional landfill) and creating a revenue stream that feeds back into ratepayers’ pockets, since the compost can be used on council gardens or sold to farmers and other producers.
Brisbane City Council has not yet adopted the initiative, but launched the food waste recycling pilot in March 2022, with over 6,000 households already participating.
“The pilot alone is expected to divert 2000 tonnes of food waste from landfill, and when expanded across the city it could reduce unnecessary food waste by nearly 100,000 tonnes a year,” said Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner.
A Council spokesperson added that the pilot has received a ‘very positive’ feedback, which will help inform its expansion across Brisbane.
In Stones Corner, collection routes are in the streets of Lincoln, Regina, and Zillah. For more information about the food waste recyling pilot in your area, visit Brisbane City Council’s website.