FOGO stands for Food Organics Garden Organics.

Residents can place both food waste and garden waste into their lime-green lidded bin. The FOGO bin will reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill or energy recovery.

The contents of the FOGO bin gets made into high-quality compost – helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and have a positive impact on our environment.

Moving to a three-bin FOGO system has many benefits for our environment, including:

Reduction in landfill: Transitioning to FOGO removes all food waste from the red-lidded general waste bin and keeps it out of landfill. The WA State Government has set a target for 70% of waste to be diverted from landfill by 2025 and FOGO will help us all to meet this target.

Using organic waste: Organic waste is a problem in landfill as it produces methane, a harmful greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Turning organic waste into compost will reduce the impact on the environment and return valuable nutrients to the soil.

Your lime green-lidded FOGO bin is collected weekly.

Your red-lidded general waste bin and yellow-lidded recycling bin are collected fortnightly on alternating weeks.

GO stands for Garden Organics, while FOGO stands for Food Organics Garden Organics.

GO bins are only used for lawn clippings and garden vegetation. These materials are currently mulched and available to residents for free from the West Metro Recycling Centre.

FOGO bins are for food scraps as well as garden organics. These materials combined are taken to a FOGO processing location to be composted into Australian Certified compost.

The Town recognises that there are some households that will not be able to manage with a single 120L general waste bin collected fortnightly and have a genuine need for a larger bin.

In this instance residents can contact the Town directly to apply to upgrade their general waste bin to 240L (collected fortnightly) at no extra charge.

As the name suggests, all food and garden organics can go in the lime green-lidded FOGO bin.

All food organics including:

• Vegetable and fruit scraps
• Meat and bones
• Seafood
• Eggshells
• Tea leaves and coffee grounds
• Dairy products
• Take away food (no containers or packaging)
• Any food that has expired or is mouldy (no containers or packaging)

Garden waste: 

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

As well as certified compostable caddy liners and produce bags – look for this symbol to make sure they can go in your FOGO bin:

No, the general waste bin will be collected fortnightly and the FOGO bin weekly.

The follow tips will help to minimise odours and insects:

• Put your FOGO bin out every week, even if it’s not full.
• Don’t overfill your compostable caddy bags, to prevent breakage. Tie them off tightly. Keep caddy lid closed tightly.
• Wrap and place any odorous food scraps (seafood, meat etc.) in the freezer until collection day.
• Layering green waste at the bottom of the bin can help absorb liquids and prevent waste sticking to the inside of the bin.
• If possible, allow lawn clippings and garden cuttings to dry out to prevent moisture build up.
• Keep your bins in the shade with the bin lids tightly closed.
• Sprinkle baking soda, vinegar, oil of cloves or lemon juice in the bin after empty to reduce odours.
• Clean your bin with soapy water if required. There are bin cleaning services available.

The kitchen caddy is a 7 litre handy bin designed to collect food scraps in the kitchen, which can then be emptied into the FOGO bin.

You can use a compostable caddy liner or place scraps loose in the caddy. Only use caddy liners that are certified compostable and have the compostable symbol – never plastic bags, as these will contaminate the compost.

No, you do not need to use compostable liners to line your kitchen caddy.

You can also put food scraps straight into the caddy. If you do use bags, they must be compostable and display the certified compostable symbol. NEVER put plastic bags or biodegradable bags into the FOGO bin.

The bin sizes the Town will be using are based on the Waste Authority’s Better Practice FOGO Kerbside Collection Guidelines. These Guidelines, which include source-separated FOGO, comprise the following bin infrastructure and collection frequencies:

General waste: 140 litres per fortnight
Co-mingled recycling: no less than 240 litres per fortnight
FOGO: preference – 240 litres per week
The collection volume for each service is important to maximise recovery and minimise general waste.

The Town of Mosman Park has entered into a funding agreement with the State Governments Better Bins Plus system and is therefore required to implement kerbside services consistent with these guidelines.

The FOGO bin will belong to your property, not you.

It can complement your compost bin/worm farm, as it can take the things that they can’t – like meat, bones, dairy products, and larger branches.

Yes! Purchase your FOGO compost at the West Metro Recycling Centre for $6.00 a bag (25 litres).

The Town may look to roll out FOGO to businesses in the future. At this stage your collections will remain the same.