FOGO bins explained: getting the most from your food and garden organics

FOGO — Food Organics and Garden Organics — is the biggest change to Australian kerbside collections in years. Councils from New South Wales to Western Australia are adding food scraps to the existing green-lid garden bin and collecting it weekly, because food waste is around a third of the average red-lid bin and turns into potent methane in landfill. If a kitchen caddy has just landed on your doorstep, here's how to make the system work for you.

How the service runs

The setup is a small kitchen caddy for the bench, plus the lime-green lidded 240-litre wheelie bin that goes out weekly — usually on the same day as one of your other bins. Everything collected goes to a commercial composting facility and comes back as compost for farms, parks and gardens. Because the wet, smelly fraction leaves your red-lid bin, many councils pair FOGO with fortnightly general waste collection. Most households find their red bin is suddenly half empty.

What goes in

• Fruit and vegetable scraps, peelings and cores
• Meat, fish, poultry, bones and shellfish — cooked or raw
• Bread, rice, pasta and leftovers, including plate scrapings
• Dairy, eggs and eggshells
• Coffee grounds and loose-leaf tea (tea bags — check your council)
• All garden waste: grass clippings, prunings, weeds and leaves
• Shredded paper and paper towel in small amounts (most councils)

Unlike a home compost bin, the industrial process handles cooked food, meat and dairy with ease — so scrape the whole plate.

What stays out

• Plastic bags of any kind — only the certified compostable liners your council supplies or approves (look for the AS 4736 seedling logo). Degradable and "biodegradable" bags are not the same thing and contaminate the compost.
• Compostable coffee cups and packaging — most facilities can't process them; they go in the red bin.
• Nappies, pet poo and kitty litter — general waste, always.
• Liquids, oils and fats — drain and scrape instead.
• Big branches and stumps — check your council's size limits or book a clean-up.

Surviving an Australian summer

Heat is the FOGO bin's natural enemy, but a few habits keep it civilised. Line the caddy with the council liner or a sheet of newspaper, sprinkle baking soda in the bottom, and keep meat and fish scraps wrapped in paper — or freeze them in a container and tip them in the night before collection. Put the bin out every week even if it's only half full, keep the lid clipped shut, store it in shade rather than full sun, and give both caddy and bin a rinse with soapy water when needed. Layering food scraps between garden clippings also keeps things drier and fresher.

Why it's worth the habit

Every tonne of food diverted from landfill avoids methane emissions and returns nutrients to Australian soil — and your red bin stops smelling, which matters when it's only collected fortnightly. The one catch is the extra schedule: weekly FOGO, fortnightly recycling, fortnightly rubbish. BinMinder sends a free reminder the evening before each collection, matched to your address, so the right bin always makes it to the kerb.