Organics Collections – grant project summaries

Household stream

Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council

Cootamundra FOGO introduction – $103,000

As a part of council's plan to maximise resource recovery, households that are currently receiving a kerbside waste collection will now receive a new kitchen caddy and a roll of biodegradable bags to facilitate the recycling of food and garden organics (FOGO). This new service will improve recycling efficiency and reduce waste to landfill. It will also create a pathway for future processing and production of recycled organic waste into premium compost products for council use and for sale to the community.

Federation Council

Rural and remote FOGO Federation Council – $45,960

This project will introduce a kerbside food and garden organics service to the remote communities of Urana and Oaklands. At the same time, the townships will move from a single bin landfill only service to a three-bin system including kerbside recycling and food and garden organics recycling, maximising the opportunities for community-wide behaviour change and sustained separation and diversion of waste from landfill.

Hay Shire Council

Hay Shire Council FOGO collection program – $89,953

Hay Shire Council will implement a weekly kerbside food and garden organics collection service. New mobile garbage bins and kitchen caddies will be provided to households and the council will provide instructions and education on the correct use of the new system. This service aims to reduce organic waste going to landfill, instead converting it into compost for the community and council.

Murray River Council

MRC Central and West Districts FOGO collections – $321,914

Following extensive community consultation, the council will establish food waste collection services for households within the Central and Western Districts of the local government area. This will reduce the council's waste to landfill by an estimated 35% by diverting 325 tonnes of food organics per year. Mobile garbage bins and kitchen caddies with compostable bin liners will be provided to households and an educational program will be implemented to encourage community support of the program.

Parramatta City Council

City of Parramatta food organics in MUDs – $225,000

The City of Parramatta is home to approximately 257,197 people, 55% of whom live in multi-unit dwellings. Council will trial an organics service in multi-unit dwellings, which will inform the council's options for introducing a new food organics collection service. The service will involve collection of source-separated food waste from low-rise multi-unit dwellings using council issued kitchen caddies and compostable bin liners. It will be supported by an extensive community engagement and education program.

Randwick City Council

FOGO collection and processing in SUDs – $1,119,748

This project will involve the collection of source-separated food and garden organics from single unit dwellings (SUDs) using small kitchen benchtop caddies and compostable caddy liners. Council will deliver an education program, carry out extensive community engagement and roll out new purpose-built mobile garbage bins with radio-frequency identification tags to monitor bins.

Tamworth Regional Council

Tamworth Regional Council organic collections – $502,000

Tamworth Regional Council will introduce a food and garden organics collection system to households. Council will provide new mobile garbage bins and kitchen caddies to households and educate residents on the correct use of the new system. The household food and garden organic waste collected will be processed for re-use as a range of compost products.

Wollongong City Council

Wollongong City Council FOGO collection rollout – $261,739

Council will undertake a 12-month trial of food and garden organics collections for multi-unit dwellings in Wollongong City. The project will cover approximately 1500 residents and will investigate the barriers to food organics and garden organics collection across a variety of multi-unit dwellings. The trial will investigate barriers such as storage space, lack of garden organics and contamination across a range of residents including single and dual households, families, seniors, non-English speaking, public housing and transient populations.

Business stream

Bega Valley Shire Council

Choose the right bin – $153,883

To complement Bega Valley Shire Council's residential food organics and garden organics (FOGO) service, council will work with all businesses within the shire to deliver a robust and suitable kerbside collection program for business FOGO. This project will save an additional 1000 tonnes of organics waste from landfill.

Bio-Renewables Riverina

Albury commercial food waste collection – $368,625

Bio-Renewables Riverina will develop and establish food waste collection services for businesses in the Albury City CBD. The project will contribute to Albury City Council's Halve Waste Initiative which aims to reduce waste to landfill by 50%. Services will be tailor-made to suit the size and food waste volume generated by each business. The project is expected to divert more than 4500 tonnes of food organics from landfill a year.

CAL Technologies Pty Ltd

CAL Technologies commercial food waste diversion project – $257,535

CAL Technologies will implement a mobile garbage bin food waste collection service that will help a range of businesses in the southern Sydney region save money. Funding will be used to purchase a food waste transfer vehicle, mobile garbage bins (120 and 660 litre capacity), bin washing unit, educational material, platform scales and development of waste management software to integrate with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) bin tags. CAL Technologies expects to be collecting and diverting an additional 2800 tonnes of commercial food waste each year.

Household stream

Inner West Council

Food organics service for apartments – $814,640

Inner West Council will introduce a food only service in the south service area in 2020 and in the west service area in 2021. The food organics only service will be available to residents in multi-unit dwellings. Collected organics will be taken to the EarthPower facility for conversion into energy.

Snowy Valleys Council

FOGO service delivery in Snowy Valleys Council – $405,242

Council will introduce a food and garden organic (FOGO) service to all currently serviced homes within the local government area. When implemented this project will process 2030 tonnes of food and garden waste each year to be turned into quality compost. There is potential for the organics kerbside collection service to be expanded to commercial enterprises in the future.

Business Stream

ORG Organic Recycling Group Pty Ltd

Food organics and compostable packaging expansion program – $166,287

ORG is a specialist organics collection company, focused on the collection and diversion of food waste from landfill. This project will support the NSW Government's commitment to divert 75% of all waste from landfill by increasing food organics and compostable packaging diversion from households and businesses in the Greater Sydney region by 1350 tonnes by 30 June 2021. This will be achieved through the employment of an Organics Expansion Program Coordinator, purchase of an additional dedicated food organics collection vehicle, mobile organics bins and the development of education material.

Remondis Australia Pty Ltd

Food waste collection for shopping centres and commercial properties – $163,533

This project will assist Remondis to purchase compactors, a bin-wash-unit and mobile garbage bins to facilitate food waste collection in shopping centres and businesses in the Hunter region. Food waste is a significant component of the waste stream in food courts, cafes and independent grocery stores and generates large amounts of greenhouse gases in landfills. The material will be processed at Awaba's new Organics Resource Recovery Facility. Remondis expects to divert 900 tonnes of commercial food waste from landfill in the first six months of collection alone and will develop case studies that can be used to promote this service to customers in the region.

Wagga Wagga City Council

Introduce organics collection service to businesses – $39,600

Council currently operates a kerbside collection service to remove and process residential household food and garden waste. This project will extend and facilitate the collection to commercial premises. In the initial phase the project is limited to food supply businesses. In the longer-term the goal is to divert food waste from all businesses.

Household stream

Armidale Regional Council

Guyra FOGO project

137,188

This project will establish food and garden organics collection services in the Guyra district of Armidale Regional Council. This will create a consistent level of service across the region, reduce organics waste in landfill and generate more compost for sale back to residents.

City of Sydney Council

Food organics collection trial in MUDs – $1,279,978

City of Sydney is proposing a large-scale trial to provide a food collection service to residential Multi-Unit Dwellings (MUDs) within the local government area that contain 50 apartments or more. The services will be rolled out between January 2019 to July 2020 and reach approximately 74,000 households in 565 buildings across 28 suburbs.

Cumberland Council

Greening Cumberland - One bin at a time! Stage 2 – $983,000

When Cumberland Council was formed in May 2016 merging parts of the former Auburn, Holroyd and Parramatta councils, a legacy of disparate waste services resulted. The residents of the former Holroyd Council are the only residents of Cumberland Council that do not have access to a garden organics kerbside collection service, and this project will fund the expansion of council's current Round 5 Organic Collections grant. The project will enable Cumberland Council to offer a voluntary uptake option of a garden organics bin (supported by a reduction in waste bin capacity) to all eligible residents of the former Holroyd Council Area.

Lockhart Shire Council

FOGO in the heart of the Riverina – $120,550

Council will introduce food and garden organics (FOGO) collections to residents, reducing waste to landfill and associated emissions. The community will actively gain a sense of participating in improving the environment. In time, the composting process will generate work and a product that can be used on the shire’s landscaping projects or sold back to the community. Introducing a FOGO bin offers an opportunity to raise awareness around waste avoidance and food waste diversion.

Penrith City Council

Expanding Horizons:  More FOGO in Penrith – $742,830

The face of Penrith is changing, experiencing major population and development growth, and is set to become a prominent town centre for Western Sydney. Penrith offers the opportunity for different types of houses to suit the changing needs of its residents, from rural properties to townhouses or villas in multi-unit complexes. Penrith will expand the food and garden organics (FOGO) system to all single unit dwellings in the local government area. The 3-bin FOGO service is an easy, convenient and environmental waste option for residents, and promotes resource recovery and best practice in the home and the community.

Randwick City Council

Food organics collection and processing in multi-unit dwellings – $1,229,420

Grant funding will support new food organics collection services for 35,340 Randwick households living in multi-unit dwellings. The new services will involve collection of source separated food waste from units, using small kitchen benchtop bins and compostable bin liners, delivery of an extensive community engagement and education program, roll out of new purpose-built collection bins. The collected food waste will be processed at an anaerobic digestion facility where methane is processed to produce green electricity and the leftover scraps are converted into fertilizer pellets to return nutrients from food to the soil. In addition, council will investigate the use of the end-product at council facilities and to give away to residents.

Upper Lachlan Shire Council

Upper Lachlan green waste service – $70,000

Upper Lachlan Shire Council will provide a new green waste service for the community, commencing in 2019. To support the service council sought funding to undertake bin audits and an enhanced education campaign aimed at increasing utilisation and effectiveness of the service.

In the 2017 round the Environmental Trust approved 7 grants, totalling $2,011,127.

Bega Valley Shire Council

The power of one: individual champions can influence change – $276,400

Bega Valley Shire Council will draw on community champions to influence a change in attitudes and behaviours of occupants of multi-unit dwellings. Tourists often come from areas where good-practice resource recovery occurs. Council and the local champion can show them ‘we recycle here too’. For visitors that travel from a community with poor practice, the council can show them better ways of doing things. Renters need to shift from a disposal culture. Our champions can connect them to a public-space edible-gardening group so they can learn about the value of food and garden organics and closing the loop on waste.

Bega Valley Shire Council

The value of food – $365,000

This project aims to collectively take responsibility for generating waste and to change behaviours with messages such as ‘it’s our problem so let’s resolve it locally’. The focus will be to understand the value of food and to avoid wasting it. To do this, the current garden organics collection service will be upgraded to a more frequent food and garden service for unavoidable food waste.

Cumberland Council

Greening Cumberland, one bin at a time! – $391,450

When Cumberland Council was formed in May 2016 (by merging parts of the former Auburn, Holroyd and Parramatta Councils) it resulted in a legacy of disparate waste services. The residents of the former Holroyd Council are the only residents of Cumberland Council that do not have access to a garden organics mobile garbage bin service. This project will enable Council to offer a voluntary uptake of a garden organics bin (complemented by a reduction in general waste bin-capacity) to residents of the former Holroyd Council. The project will also include a comprehensive education campaign to ensure maximum uptake.

Goulburn Mulwaree Council

Organics collection service implementation and education program – $549,630

Council will undertake a multi-year program to roll out a community education program and a fortnightly food organics and garden organics (FOGO) collection service across the local-government area (LGA). The first stage will see data collected via waste composition audits with the results used to develop a targeted education program addressing contamination and barriers to FOGO recycling. Stage 2 will see FOGO bins provided for every household in the LGA, commencement of a fortnightly collection service, and ongoing education activities to promote the service and its benefits. Council recently established an approved compost facility and 40% of residents voluntarily use council’s current monthly FOGO service (funding their own FOGO bin).

North East Waste

North East Waste FOGO in MUDs Trial – $88,047

This project aims to investigate why multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) do not access food organics garden organics (FOGO) kerbside services, and how participation could be maximised and contamination minimised. Residential, holiday and public housing properties in 3 of our local government areas will be targeted. The project aims to establish a baseline of the organics in red and green bins and then trial different education engagement techniques and ‘interventions’ to determine their impact through monitoring and auditing. This project will provide our councils with accurate costings, real information and achievable recommendations to inform their own future plans to improve FOGO uptake and practices in MUDs.

Orange City Council

Model for increasing FOGO uptake in multi-unit dwellings – $87,000

The demand for domestic food organics and garden organics (FOGO) services, and the subsequent use by residents, has been identified as an opportunity worthy of targeted engagement. This project will develop and test a model for multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) engagement around FOGO services and be followed by 2 subsequent rounds of model implementation. The model will document a path to installation of FOGO bins at MUDs, and will include stakeholder identification and engagement, bin number calculations and installation, and subsequent education and communication to support use of the newly installed bins. Each round will include baseline bin inspections and follow-up inspections to establish usage (volume) and contamination.

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council

MUDs organics recovery project – $253,600

This project is a trial roll-out food organics and garden organics (FOGO) services to multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) that do not currently have this service. MUDs include domestic apartments and sites that share waste services using Council’s domestic waste collection or private services. The project will target aged care facilities, retirement villages and sites such as caravan parks with permanent residents.

In the 2016 round the Environmental Trust approved 4 grants, totalling $1,656,231.

Gundagai Council

Kerbside and green waste collection diverting organics from landfill – $94,368

The project will enhance the kerbside garden organics service in Cootamundra by enabling residents to put food and garden organics in the kerbside green lid bin. A total of 3165 residents will receive a kitchen caddy, compostable bags and an information pack explaining the service.

Tamworth Regional Council

Tamworth Regional Council FOGO Collection Service – $585,549

Tamworth Council’s project will provide a combined food organics and garden organics kerbside collection service to the local community. The service will enable council to divert more waste from landfill by collecting and recycling food waste that is currently disposed of at the Forest Road Waste Management Facility.

Tweed Shire Council

Food and Organics Collection and Processing – Tweed Shire Council – $656,162

This project will increase domestic resource recovery in the residential areas of the Tweed Shire, by introducing a new food and organics collection service to 23,000 households. To support the new service, a kitchen caddy, compostable bags and an information kit will be delivered each household. The new service will recover 3866 tonnes of organic material a year to be made into compost.

Upper Hunter Shire Council

Organic waste collection – Upper Hunter Shire – $320,152

Upper Hunter Shire Council will introduce a kerbside organics collection service for its residents to capture and recycle an estimated 3000 tonnes of organic waste currently going to landfill each year. New green lid bins and kitchen caddies will be provided to 3700 households and an education program will help people understand how to use the new system most effectively.