Now that it’s been just over a year since we rolled-out FOGO to Wollongong residents, we’re taking a moment to reflect on and share its successes with our community.
FOGO—Food Organics and Garden Organics—provides residents with the opportunity to put food scraps in their green-lidded bins. It’s an important change as diverting food waste from going to landfill reduces the amount of harmful greenhouse gas emissions produced as the food waste decomposes.
So far, more than 91 per cent of eligible households in the Wollongong Local Government Area have a FOGO kerbside collection service! That’s a total of 78,690 households who have received a FOGO caddy starter kit and caddy liners in the past 14 months.
Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said that Wollongong City Council first launched FOGO in November 2020 to eligible Wollongong residents.
“Over the past year or so, we’ve collected over 36,000 tonnes of FOGO waste and diverted this away from landfill. This number includes at least 4,700 tonnes of food waste which is equal to nearly seven Olympic-sized swimming pools,” Cr Bradbery said.
“This is a fantastic result for our first year of FOGO and it’s a real testament to the support and participation of our community.
“Council relies completely on residents taking up FOGO and doing the right thing to make this work. What we’ve witnessed over the past year is an overwhelming enthusiasm and positivity towards FOGO from most residents. Thank you to everyone who has supported Council on this journey to reduce our city’s greenhouse gas emissions.”
As we continue to expand FOGO, we have a goal to continue to encourage residents to use the new system and explore ways to roll-out FOGO to even more residents and households.
Right now, Council is in the midst of a trial to improve the collection of food waste in multi-unit dwellings. The aim of this project is to investigate a range of ways to incorporate FOGO collection across a range of different residential types and will target approximately 1,500 existing residences. The trial is in the early stages and will run over a minimum of twelve months.
