Only three Sydney councils on track to meet national household food waste target
Penrith City Council has had a FOGO system in place since 2009. (Supplied: Penrith City Council)
Just three Sydney councils have implemented household organic food waste collection, despite federal and state governments wanting all metropolitan councils to have a system by 2030.
Key points:
- In NSW, 26 metropolitan councils do not have any organic food waste collection
- Penrith has had the Food Organics & Garden Organics (FOGO) system in place since 2009
- Local governments need more federal and state funding to help meet targets, a local government advocacy body says
The federal government recently changed its target for household organic food waste collection, which was previously for all councils by 2023.
Penrith, Randwick and Woollahra councils are the only ones to have fully implemented schemes. Inner West Council has a food organics collection service just for multi-unit dwellings.
Penrith in Sydney's west was the first metropolitan council in Australia to introduce the FOGO (Food Organics Garden Organics) bin in 2009.
Mayor of Penrith City Tricia Hitchen told ABC Radio Sydney they started the scheme after discovering half of all waste in garbage bins was organic and could be used to fertilise the council's gardens and sporting fields.
Almost 40,000 tonnes of waste has been diverted from landfill thanks to the scheme, Penrith council says. (Supplied: Penrith City Council)
The council said it had composted more than 400,000 tonnes of FOGO waste since it began.
"It just made sense that we brought in a new system," Cr Hitchen told presenter Suzanne Hill.
Compost created from food waste is used on sporting fields in Penrith. (Supplied: Penrith City Council)
"It's a fabulous programme that recycles around the community and saves everybody money."
Cr Hitchen said implementation was not easy, but the scheme had led to council not needing to spend as much on removing landfill waste.
"Waste is one of the most expensive items on any council's bill. So anything you can do to reduce waste going to the landfill is remarkable," she said.
What are the barriers?
Randwick Mayor Dylan Parker said councils must negotiate waste contracts with companies that could process the waste. He said these would sometimes be the council's biggest contract.
"For smaller councils, they might be very worried about making a major change," Cr Parker said.
The federal government wants all organic household food waste collected in metropolitan Australia by 2030. (ABC News: Gian De Poloni)
Randwick has a contract with Veolia, which uses the waste to make compost for farming soil.
Cr Parker said the council also ran several years of trials with households before the scheme was fully implemented.
The schemes can become expensive if there is a great distance between households and collection, Australian Local Government Association president Linda Scott said.
"Whilst environmentally good and something we all want to do ... [it needs] to be paid for," Ms Scott said.
"That's where the difficult discussions are happening."
Implementing FOGO can be expensive for councils, Australian Local Government Association President Linda Scott says. (ABC News: Evelyn Manfield)
Ms Scott said the main issue was having someone to buy the waste product.
"In Australia, unfortunately, we still don't have rates of people buying materials made out of recycled goods that are very high," Ms Scott said.
"That means every step of the process, sending out the bins, collecting them, paying for the waste to be processed — all these things become very expensive."
Ms Scott would like to see more federal and state government support for local governments while they are in the transition phase.
'We saw the writing on the wall'
The NSW government is aiming for all 128 councils across the state to be providing FOGO services by 2030.
Only a handful of Sydney councils have fully implemented FOGO organic waste collection. (Supplied: NSW government)
More councils are trialling FOGO, with Canada Bay to trial the system in multi-unit dwellings next year.
The City of Sydney and Parramatta have also completed trials in multi-unit dwellings.
Despite the challenges for local governments, Cr Parker said the community strongly supported the FOGO system.
Loading...About 14,000 tonnes were collected in the first 12 months, and only three per cent of the waste was contaminated, Cr Parker said.
"I was a bit of a FOGO sceptic when it was first getting talked about, and I have to admit, I was completely blown away by how enthusiastically people took it up," Cr Parker said.
"We saw the long-term writing on the wall … there was a demand for it. And it's good for the planet as well."