Published on Wednesday, 29 July 2020 at 11:38:11 AM
The Town of Bassendean has earned praise from the EMRC for becoming the first local government north of the Swan River to introduce a new household three-bin service for collection of Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) material.
Launched in the Town on Monday, July 27, FOGO enables residents to separate food and garden material from other household waste and materials for recycling. Household FOGO material, separated into kitchen caddies and placed in residents’ new lime-green lid bins, is taken to an EMRC facility where it is converted into compost instead of being placed in landfill, where its value would otherwise be lost.
The rollout follows months of community engagement and campaigning by Town of Bassendean staff, supported by a team of EMRC Waste Education specialists. An important part of the program is to encourage householders to use compostable bags in their kitchen caddies to help keep FOGO material uncontaminated and to break it down into compost more easily.
Earlier in 2020 the EMRC distributed $13.9m to its six member Councils to help pay for new lime-green lid bins, kitchen caddies, community education and other related costs. FOGO will be rolled out progressively across all of Perth’s Eastern Region by 2025, making a major contribution towards the Western Australian government’s waste diversion targets.
Lime-green lid FOGO bins in the Town of Bassendean will be collected weekly. Existing fortnightly collections of yellow lid recycling materials will continue as normal with red lid general waste bins collected on alternate weeks. A useful guide to FOGO produced by the Town is available here.
EMRC CEO Marcus Geisler said, ‘The Town of Bassendean is to be warmly congratulated for taking a lead position on the rollout of FOGO. Every resident in the Town can now play an important part in making FOGO a success.’
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