Push to change FOGO bin mandate as Australia races against time in 'landfill crisis'
Research shows Australians want to do the right thing, but we're a long way away from our composting goal. And time is running out.
Depending on where you are in Australia, there’s a pretty good chance your local council has introduced a new bin (or even two) in recent times. But the fragmented national push to improve composting systems is moving too slow to avert major trouble, industry insiders say.
While councils around the country have introduced FOGO bins for household to dispose of their food scraps and organic waste, diverting it away from landfill, about half the country’s roughly 500 councils are still lagging behind on the much needed initiative, according to BioPak CEO and Compost Connect board member, Gary Smith.
"We need more than 50 per cent of councils to allow FOGO," he told Yahoo News Australia.
"We’ve been watching this now for about 15 years, there’s always been the ambition for every council to offer it, [but] it’s really slow."
In NSW less than half of the state’s 128 councils offer FOGO bins, but with many inner city councils getting on board, that means about 69 per cent of households have the composting bin, according to the NSW Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That same agency predicts Sydney and some surrounding areas will run out of landfill space by 2030 — putting a ticking clock on the need to increase recycling rates and divert food waste from landfill.
As much as 40 per cent of our regular bin waste is discarded food, "and that's what's doing damage in landfill, that's what going into our environment, under the ground and creating methane. If we can divert that, that’s a huge win," Gary said.
The road to FOGO has been bumpy. For instance, in 2022 NSW councils were reportedly blinded by new EPA rules on what could go in the green bins. Meanwhile last year the public was urged to better comply with the rules after the body of a deceased pet dog and even a grenade was found in the waste stream, among other non-organics. A deadline for all councils to have FOGO by 2030 has also seen pushback by western Sydney councils.
Gary says piecemeal rules and regulations at a federal, state and local level has been holding back the nation's transition to fully embracing composting and alleviating what he calls the "landfill crisis".
Currently South Australia is leading the way and has even introduced a compost bin in public places such as shopping malls. "I'm not sure why the eastern seaboard hasn't learned from their successes and implemented them across the eastern states," Gary lamented to Yahoo.
Logos, greenwashing and a push for better information
Research conducted by the government backed initiative Compost Connect showed an overwhelming majority of Australians place a high importance on disposing of items in the correct council bin, but only one in five said their council made composting easy for them.
Advocates are calling for better public education as the research found only one in 10 Australians were able to recognise the industrially compostable and home compostable logos – and that few people understood their true meaning.
There have also been difficulties around the type of compostable bin liners being used, with Victoria recently flagging a ban on certain liners that aren’t actually living up to the promise of breaking down.
"It is a bit of a source of confusion," Bhavna Middha from the Centre for Urban Research at Melbourne's RMIT University told Yahoo News in August. "But the government is not distinguishing between the actually disposable ones versus the ones that have been manufactured from bioplastics or something like that," she said. In lieu of a wide-ranging crackdown on product advertising, an outright ban of the liners is on the horizon — a path the UK has already gone down.
As the industry continues to grow, more solutions are heading to the market to increase our ability to compost such as corn starch based bags for supermarket produce, and even a rather expensive FOGO-style bin that turns scraps into dirt in 24 hours.
Organic food that is left to rot can produce methane, which is some 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. That's why Compost Connect is calling on Aussies to sign a 'Compost for Climate' petition calling for better access to composting information for households, more investment in composting infrastructure and initiatives to encourage the practice.
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