FOGO – Green Bin – Collection Starts

What goes in the green bin?

Your green bin is a FOGO bin. FOGO stands for ‘Food Organics and Garden Organics’. This means that your green bin collects both food and plant waste.

The green bin collects food scraps and plant cuttings for recycling into compost and other soil improvers, making it easy for households to divert waste from landfill.

Can all my food go in the green bin?

Yes, all your food scraps can go in the green bin, including:

• Raw and cooked food,
• Bread, cakes and other baked goods,
• Dairy food,
• Eggs and eggshells,
• Fruit and vegetables, including citrus fruit,
• Meat and meat bones,
• Mouldy, expired and partly eaten food,
• Seafood, fish bones and seafood shells,
• Take away food (no containers),
• Tea leaves and coffee grinds (no tea bags or coffee pods).

All the scraps from edible things can go in your green bin but labels, wrappers, containers, cardboard and paper cannot go in.

Can all my plant cuttings go in the green bin?

Yes, all your plant cuttings can go in the green bin, including:

• Diseased plants and leaves,
• Flowers,
• Leaves,
• Grass clippings,
• Palm fronds,
• Twigs and small sticks, and
• Weeds.

All parts of your garden plants can go in the green bin but please don’t put in large logs.

What can’t go in the green bin?

Remember that only food and plants can go in the green bin. 

Please do not put in:

• plastic,
• cardboard,
• compostable manufactured items, including compostable packaging and compostable cutlery,
• packaging,
• containers,
• shoes,
• clothes and other textiles.

Anything that isn’t part of your food or your garden plants cannot go in the green bin.

The food and plants from your green bin are recycled into high quality compost and soil improvers. The compost and soil improvers are used to grow more food and also used in sports fields, parks and gardens. Only putting food and plants in your green bin protects the soil and our food.

For more information, visit ‘FOGO information for households’ on the NSW EPA website.

What if I already put my food scraps and garden clippings in my compost bin or worm farm?

A lot of food scraps and plant cuttings can be managed in a home compost system. Your green bin can complement your home compost system by taking any food and plants that you may not put in your home compost, such as bones, citrus, diseased leaves and weeds.

What happens to the food and plants in my green bin?

• The food and plants from your green bin are taken to the ANL organics processing facility at Blayney.
• This is a certified facility that turns your FOGO into high quality soil conditioners and compost.
• The soil conditioners and compost are valuable products that are in high demand for use in agriculture, horticulture, gardens, parks and sports fields.

What are the benefits of compost?

A ‘Food Organics and Garden Organics’ (FOGO) green bin recycles both food and plant material.

Recycling food and plants saves landfill space, returns nutrients and energy resources to the soil and has many other benefits including:

• Preventing methane gas and toxic pollutants from forming during the decomposition of organic material because oxygen is present in the recycling process.
• Increasing the water-holding capacity of soil which reduces the need for irrigation.
• Improving the health of soil and, therefore, the plants which reduces the need for fertilisers and pesticides.

For more information see https://council.lithgow.com/waste-recycling/fogo/

Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash