Did you know that Chermside is among the suburbs chosen to participate in the pilot run of the FOGO initiative, a trial that will reduce food waste in a pilot batch of 6,000 households across 30 suburbs in Brisbane.
What is FOGO (food organics garden organics) pilot?
The FOGO pilot is a food waste recycling initiative of the Brisbane City Council aimed at diverting food waste from landfills.
Council selected eight existing green waste collection routes to be part of the pilot: four from Brisbane north and four from Brisbane south. Beginning 1 March 2022, Council will collect food scraps from participating households from routes one and two. And then from 8 March for routes three and four, including parts of Chermside, Geebung and Wavell Heights.
Why participate in the FOGO?
Here are some troubling facts about food waste in Australia as noted by NFWS Feasibility Study:
- An estimated $20 billion is lost to the Australian economy each year due to food waste.
- Apart from the economic costs, over 5.3 million tonnes of food intended for human consumption is wasted from households and the commercial and industrial sectors each year.
- Households throw away 3.1 million tonnes of edible food, equivalent to almost 17,000 grounded 747 jumbo jets.
- Food waste costs Australian households between $2,200 and $3,800 each year.
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What we can gain from minimising food waste:
- Food waste can be converted into valuable compost for use by farmers and in gardens both big and small
- Reduce food waste, reduce food costs
- Reduce foul odour coming from rotting food and reduce the potential source of disease and vermin infestation.
- Reduce food wastes in Brisbane where around 80,000 tonnes are thrown each year.
What the pilot program entails
A letter will be sent to households in the pilot suburbs inviting them to participate in the free service. Before the service commences, each participating household will then receive a six-litre kitchen caddy and an education pack.
Food scraps will go to the kitchen caddy, before and after meals. It is important to line the caddy with a newspaper, paper bag or paper towel and then store it in a place where flies can’t swarm over it; but don’t use plastic bags.
Every one or two days, residents will empty their caddy of their food waste such as fruit and vegetable scraps, along with their garden waste into their green waste recycling bin. Take your green bin out for collection as part of the regular fortnightly bin collection process.
But don’t put these in your green bin
Food waste
- dairy products (yoghurt, cheese, ice cream, all milk types)
- meat products (bones, red and white meat)
- seafood
Garden material
- rocks and stones
- branches too big to fit in the bin
- plastic plant pots
- garden tools, hoses, gloves, fuel, oil cans
Other items
- plastic bags and food packaging
- all types of plastic or polystyrene containers
- cooking oil
- fruit and vegetable stickers
- coffee pods and capsules
- tape, ties, rubber bands
- cigarette butts
- vacuum dust and hair
- nappies (including compostable), baby wipes, flushable wet wipes
- kitty litter, animal waste
Food wastes will be collected and taken to a resource recovery centre and will hand it over to a Council partner’s green waste recycling facility. The food wastes will then be converted into compost according to Australian standards to be used by local farmers, urban growers and businesses.
