FOGO stands for Food Organics Garden Organics and refers to the collection of food scraps and garden vegetation from your lime green-lidded bin.

Food organics are collected separately in the kitchen in your provided kitchen caddy, to easily separate organics from general waste and recyclables. Simply place your food waste in the FOGO bin with your garden organics instead of your general waste bin.

Once your FOGO bin gets collected, it will travel to a FOGO processor that will process your food and garden organics into high quality compost over a number of weeks. This helps to increase recovery rates and send less waste to landfill that can be much better used to create quality compost for our parks and gardens. And the more food and garden waste we save from landfill, the less greenhouse gases are produced – Good effort.

Visit www.wastesorted.wa.gov.au for more information.

Transitioning to FOGO removes all food waste from the red lid general waste bin and keeps it out of landfill.

Food and garden organics produce methane, a harmful greenhouse gas, when trapped in landfill conditions, harming the atmosphere and our environment. FOGO waste will become compost instead.

The WA State Government requires all local governments in Perth and Peel to move to FOGO by 2025 (houses, not apartments yet)

Households going FOGO will maintain a three-bin system, but the GO bin will become a FOGO bin.

This transition allows you to add food scraps and garden vegetation to your lime-green lidded bin. Participating households will also receive a kitchen caddy and liners to hold food scraps until they are tipped in the FOGO bin. If you don’t receive a caddy, your property is not eligible for FOGO yet.

Your FOGO bin will be collected weekly.

Your red-lidded general waste bin and yellow-lidded recycling bin will be collected on alternating weeks.

GO (Garden Organics) bins are only used for lawn clippings and garden vegetation. These materials were mulched and available to residents of WMRC Member Councils for free.

FOGO (Food Organics Garden Organics) bins can accept garden organics and food scraps. These materials combined will be taken to a FOGO processing location to be composted into Australian Certified compost.

Free mulch will still be available to residents.

These items are accepted in your FOGO bin:

All food organics including:

• Vegetable and fruit scraps
• Meat and bones
• Seafood
• Eggshells
• Teabags and coffee grinds
• Dairy products
• Take away food (no containers)

Garden waste:

• Grass clippings
• Pruning, cuttings, trimmings
• Twigs and sticks
• Palm fronds
• Weeds

Items can be placed loose in the bin or inside a compostable caddy liner. See below for how to line your kitchen caddy.

Good work!

If it didn’t live or grow, it’s not FOGO.

Please keep these items OUT of your FOGO bin:

• Recycling bin items
• Soft plastic (bread bags, garbage bags, bubble wrap, shopping bags, etc.)
• Plastic
• Gardening products (plastic plant pots, garden hoses, seedling trays, garden tools, etc.)
• Nappies
• Personal hygiene products
• Treated and painted timber
• Metal
• Glass
• Textiles (e.g., old clothing or cloth nappies)

Not sure what waste goes where? Visit Recycle Right A-Z Directory and put your waste in the right place.

By putting only food organics, garden organics and certified compostable products in the FOGO bin, we can produce a high quality end-product – contaminants like plastic, metal and glass can degrade the quality of the end product. A high-quality compost from FOGO derived materials is safe for use on our parks and gardens, helping to keep our food and garden waste in the circular economy.

Good stuff

Initially, the FOGO service will only be available properties without shared bins.

It is expected that multi-unit dwellings (apartments) will transition to FOGO from 2024.

Other Member Councils will be adopting the FOGO system at different times. All councils in the Perth and Peel regions are expected to begin the transition to FOGO by 2025.

As part of the FOGO roll-out, each household will receive a kitchen caddy. The caddy is a counter-top style bin with a lid and handle, to keep in your kitchen for collecting food scraps. Each household will also receive 2 rolls of 75 certified compostable liners which can be used to line the kitchen caddy – these will break down during the composting process.

To use the caddy, insert a compostable liner and start collecting your kitchen scraps inside. Each liner should last for 2 to 3 days in the caddy before starting to break down. Liners are not necessary to use but do keep the caddy and FOGO bin cleaner. Any moisture will speed up the rate of degradation, so keep your FOGO caddy and liners in a dry place. Alternatively, newspaper can also be used, or the food scraps can go directly in your caddy or bin. Tie the caddy liner and place in your FOGO bin. Put out the FOGO bin for weekly collection on your normal bin day – Good work.

If you would like to purchase more caddy liners at the supermarket, look for the symbol (below) that indicates that it is certified compostable, otherwise they cannot be used. Town of Cottesloe residents can also purchase additional liners from the Town of Cottesloe Administration Centre.

No! Please don’t use plastic bags in your FOGO bin as they contaminate the compost.

Degradable and biodegradable bags are not suitable for composting either – caddy liners need to be certified compostable (Certified Compostable AS4736 or Certified Home Compostable AS5810) to break down in the organics facility and create a quality compost without the chemicals found in plastic.

Look for these certifications when purchasing compostable caddy liners.

Your weekly collection day will stay the same, but which bins are collected will change. The FOGO bin will be collected weekly, and the recycling and general waste bin collected on alternate fortnights.

Bin sizes may change to align with the recommendations for transitioning to FOGO. This may be a 240L lime green lid FOGO bin, a 240L yellow lid recycling bin and a 140L red lid general waste bin.

Putting food waste in your FOGO bin should reduce the waste going in your general waste bin.

This means you only have general household rubbish like hygiene products, nappies, plastic bags, polystyrene and soft plastic going in your general waste bin.

To reduce what goes in your general waste bin, you can take bulky polystyrene, plastic bottle lids, old cooking oil, and more to the West Metro Recycling Centre for free.

Of course, creating less waste in the first place is the best way to reduce bin waste. Download our factsheets or come along to a workshop to find out how you can live a full life with less waste.

Yes. The new three bin FOGO system will be the standard waste service provided to WMRC Member Council residents. We encourage you to continue to compost at home, however, you can use your lime green lidded FOGO bin for food items you can’t put in your home compost bin, like bones, meat and seafood.

No, there will be no additional costs to residents for the standard three bin FOGO service.

The lime green lidded FOGO bin will be collected weekly so it shouldn’t smell any more than your general waste bin does now.

Your red lidded rubbish bin will be collected fortnightly.

Many items that cause odours can go in the FOGO bin.

You can reduce FOGO bin smells by:

• Wrapping food scraps in newspaper
• Using compostable bags
• Layering food waste with dry materials, like lawn clippings & dirty cardboard
• Freezing particularly odorous food scraps, like seafood, and put them in the FOGO bin the night before collection.

Nappies should be placed in your red lidded general waste bin. Emptying the poo down the toilet and securing the nappy in a plastic bag will minimise odours. Research shows that nappies smell progressively worse for four days then do not smell any worse (or better) after that. So, a red lid bin containing nappies smells no worse after a fortnight than it does after a week.

Modern cloth nappies are a great way to reduce your waste as a new parent. They are easier to use than you think, save money, and create less waste. Follow our Eventbrite to be notified of our new Modern Cloth Nappy workshop – You’ll get to touch and feel the various types of cloth nappies, learn how to fit one, learn the secrets for effective washing and discover how to keep your baby’s skin healthy.