The ACT Government will pilot Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) collection services for selected Belconnen suburbs later this year to help reduce waste going to landfill.

Designed to turn household scraps into valuable compost, the FOGO service will help Canberrans take everyday action on climate change and reduce waste emissions by up to 30 per cent.

Currently, about a third of residential rubbish bin content is food waste which goes to landfill and contributes to climate change. Food waste breaks down in the airless conditions in landfill and emits methane, an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. The ACT has a target to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and achieve net zero emissions by 2045, so reducing these emissions from our waste stream is an important part of the ACT Government’s action on climate change.

Belconnen suburbs Belconnen, Bruce, Cook and Macquarie have been selected for the pilot because of their mix of freestanding houses and apartment buildings.

The pilot will include the following changes:

• Lime green lidded bins will change from garden waste only to FOGO bins.
• Participating households that do not already have a green waste bin will be provided one free of charge.
• All participating households will be given an easy-to-use kitchen caddy with compostable liners as a convenient way to collect their food scraps. The food scraps in the caddies can then be emptied into the FOGO bin along with garden waste.
• Waste collection for single-residential households in the pilot suburbs will change, with green FOGO bins collected weekly instead of fortnightly, and rubbish bins collected fortnightly instead of weekly.

The pilot will focus on contamination rates and how FOGO collection can be implemented successfully across individual households and multi-unit developments.

Participating households will be contacted by letter and the ACT Government will work closely with residents to support their transition to the FOGO service ahead of the pilot commencing later this year.

The pilot is intended to continue through to when the service is rolled out to all Canberra households, with recent survey results showing that 92 per cent of Canberrans support a fully-fledged FOGO collection service in the ACT.

For more information on the FOGO pilot, visit: www.act.gov.au/fogo.