FOOD Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) bins have been in place in the City of Hobart for almost three years, with the service continuing to grow over that time.
The City introduced a green garden waste collection service in 2016 before extending it to include food organics in 2019. Currently around 15,000 Hobart households have the service.
“Since we launched the full FOGO service in November 2019, we’ve seen around a 30% increase in the volume of material collected,” Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said. “That’s a huge amount of waste that would previously have gone to landfill now being composted and given a productive use.”
The FOGO collection service now collects approximately 4,000 tonnes of organic material each year, or around 277 rubbish trucks’ worth.
“The program has been so successful, that we’ve recently been able to start offering weekly collection for households if necessary,” Lord Mayor Reynolds said. “It’s great to see so many Hobartians taking this up.”
Over half of the average Australian household’s waste is made up of food and garden waste. Turning this waste into compost provides significant benefit through improvement of soil quality, reducing the need for chemical fertilisers, and reducing watering requirements by as much as 30%.
The City of Hobart’s FOGO collection is processed at the McRobie’s Gully waste management centre to be turned into compost that is used in city operations as well as being provided to a third party supplier for consumer purchase.
