FOGO collection service to commence in July 2021
Published on 26 May 2021
The roll out of the new FOGO collection service will be undertaken alongside the bin harmonisation project and is scheduled to commence in July 2021 in line with the funding requirements.
Delivering these projects together provides significant efficiencies for Council and community.
Implementation of the FOGO collection service will provide the community with the opportunity to reduce their household’s environmental footprint by reducing waste to landfill. The organic material collected through the FOGO service will be sorted and instead of being transported to landfill it will be transported to an organics processing facility.
The material will be processed and returned to the soil through compost and/or soil conditioner rather than breaking down and producing methane gas in landfill (methane gas is in the order 20 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide).
The cost to transport this material to a processing facility will not incur additional cost to Council or community compared to transporting to landfill and will provide immediate benefits to the environment.
Council is progressing with the delivery of the FOGO collection service as a priority project in accordance with its Zero-Waste Strategy, focused on minimising waste to landfill and reducing Council’s environmental footprint.
Council has also committed to the construction and commissioning of its own organics processing facility located in Tumut. The finalisation of designs and the development approval process for this facility is underway.
The new development is considered regionally significant and so to ensure that any environmental and heritage matters associated with the facility are properly identified and addressed it is expected that the approval process will take some time to complete.
Once the construction is completed, FOGO material will be processed locally and produce even greater cost and environmental benefits.
More information will be provided on the bin roll-out and FOGO collection service in the coming weeks.
$405,242 was awarded for the rollout of the FOGO collection service and $946,924 for the construction of the organics processing facility from the NSW Environmental Trust (in partnership with Energy, Climate Change & Sustainability Directorate) funded through the waste less, recycle more initiative.