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Costa helps celebrate five years of FOGO in Bega Valley

The Bega Valley saw a welcome reunion recently with ABC Gardening Australia favourite, Costa Georgiadis sharing the limelight in Merimbula with some of the kids who helped launch Council’s FOGO service in 2018.

Here to give a rundown of FOGO-friendly products and common green bin contaminants, the kids and Costa got together to film some educational videos and spread the message of how easy it is to recycle home organics.

Council’s Waste Education Officer, Rebecca Bruce said the get-together was to mark a milestone that couldn’t have been achieved without community support.

“Since starting the FOGO service in 2018 we’ve seen firsthand the enormous positive impact that organics recycling has had on our community,” Ms Bruce said.

“To help us celebrate, we invited the one and only Costa, along with some of the original kids from our FOGOmentary to refresh the message of how and why we FOGO.”

Costa, with his evergreen enthusiasm said meeting the kids and the FOGO crew again was a fantastic celebration of collaboration and environmental stewardship.

“The Bega Valley was one of the first local councils to get on the FOGO train. It had the vision to take the kitchen and garden waste that people throw in the bin and turn it into something your garden just loves,” Costa said.

“When I got the invite to catch up with some of the original FOGO kids, I jumped at it! These are the future FOGO champs who are showing their families, neighbours and mates how to keep this amazing organic resource out of landfill.”

Ms Bruce said five years of collecting household and business organics has led to thousands of tonnes of kitchen scraps and garden waste being diverted back to the land to grow plants, fruit and veggies.

“It’s easy to see why the kids and Costa get excited about it,” Ms Bruce said. “And we’re sharing all this enthusiasm by releasing a few short educational videos on our website and Facebook.

“The message in the videos highlights how easy it is to put the right product in the right bin, which reduces the risk of plastic and other non-organic things getting in this great garden resource.

“We’ll be releasing the first of the videos this week, with others appearing on Facebook and our website later in June.”

For more information on Council’s FOGO service and to watch the first of the videos, .

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