Do you know what's a no-go in FOGO in NSW? Many don't and that's a problem
Many already do, but there is still widespread confusion about exactly what should go in the green bin.
Pizza boxes, tea bags, cardboard, timber and bamboo utensils were initially allowed when FOGO started in 2013, but the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has since revised its advice.
Now only food or garden waste should go under the green lid.
"We want to keep things out like plastics and anything that might allow for microplastics to break down into the FOGO," EPA executive director of programs and innovation Alexandra Geddes said.
Other problem items include pet faeces and poo bags, paper towels, vacuum cleaner dust and lint from tumble dryers.
FOGO contamination is a serious issue, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimating 45 per cent of all organic waste still ends up in landfill.
There are 128 local councils in NSW and, according to the EPA, 57 already have a FOGO service.
Another 13 have FOGO plans in place, 32 have green bins to collect garden waste only and 26 offer no organic collection.
At this stage, it is up individual councils to implement and enforce rules about what can go in the green bin, although the EPA does provide "guidance".
"That's because what we really want is [pure] organic matter that comes out of the process," Ms Geddes said.
It is also up to the individual councils to determine how they collect and process FOGO material, with many opting to send it to composting facilities and then buy it back for their fertiliser regimes.
Dan Nicholson, director of Topsoil Organics, is acutely aware of confusion around FOGO.
The FOGO generated by 186,000 residents in Sydney's Inner West LGA are trucked to his composting facility at Forbes, in the NSW Central West, a round trip of more than 700 kilometres.
"We try to really harvest every bit of organics possible that comes on site … it's a circular economy," he said.
"We're still obviously getting the wrong things going into the bin, from drink bottles and milk cartons [to] the whole packet of bread still with the plastic around it."
Mr Nicholson said he employed 10 people to pick through FOGO and remove contamination.
Anything that comes in a green "compostable" bag is separated in the picking station and eventually processed using black soldier flies to harvest residual organics.
"We still need a lot more education and people need to understand that FOGO is a material that's being used in the agricultural sector," he said.
"We've got to get that material spotless so it fits the order and exemption to be able to go back into land."
Clint Neville, a third-generation mixed farmer from Forbes who is using organic fertiliser produced by FOGO composting, said increasing organic carbon levels in the soil boosted its water-holding capacity while adding macro-nutrients.
"Every 30 years, your soil organic levels halve," Mr Neville said.
"We had one paddock where it was 0.5 per cent organic carbon [with 2 to 3 per cent being where we want to be] and we got about 600 tonnes of compost, and within 12 months we saw it bounce up to 1.7 per cent."
Mr Neville said his aim had been to build more resilience within his farming system and do more with less.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
7 minutes ago
- ABC News
Australia's divorce rate is the lowest it has been in 50 years. Why?
At first glance, it might seem like good news: divorces in Australia have dropped to their lowest rate since no-fault divorce was introduced. And on average, marriages are lasting longer. Latest data show 2.1 divorces registered for every 1,000 Australians aged 16 and over in 2024. But while greater longevity of marriages has been heralded as a sign of more successful relationships, the reality is far more nuanced. Australians are marrying and divorcing less and having fewer children amid increasing economic insecurity. It's emblematic of deep and complex social change. Divorce in Australia has changed significantly since the 1975 reform that removed the requirements to show fault. That is, couples could now go their separate ways without having to explain themselves. For 20 years before no-fault divorce, marriage dissolution was reported by court-decreed fault and included among official crime statistics. Included among the more than a dozen grounds for divorce were adultery, drunkenness and non-consummation. When Australians divorce now, they're older — 47 years for men and 44 for women — reflecting increasing age when marrying and longer duration in marriage. Marriages are typically lasting just over eight months more to separation and nearly 11 months longer to divorce than in 2019, the year before the COVID pandemic started. Such an increase points to a swift and sharp change likely brought on during, and since, the pandemic. But this doesn't mean we're getting better at navigating relationships — rather, Australians are remaining longer in marriages due to economics. Cohabiting before marriage is also increasingly common, enabling relationship testing. Most Australians believe marriage isn't necessarily a lifelong thing, reflecting widespread acceptance of divorce. But marriage remains an important aspect of our lives. Marriage remains a major part of Australian society, with most Australians marrying at some point in their lives. Marriage equality, enshrined in law in 2017, reflects the enduring relevance of formal marriage. But there have been some changes. Religion no longer dominates marriage, with most weddings officiated by celebrants. This trend has continued since the late 1990s. In 2023, more than 83 per cent of marriages were conducted by civil celebrants, not a religious minister. Latest figures show marriages have steadied since the COVID slump and rebound, with Australians marrying less on average now than before the pandemic. Overall, the rate of marriage has more than halved since 1971, dropping from 13 marriages per 1,000 people aged 16 years and over to 5.5 in 2024. Marriage rates are now well down from the peak set during Australia's post-war baby boom, where increased and younger coupling drove record birth rates in the 1960s. While most children are born to married parents, the proportion has changed substantially over the years. In 1971, 91 per cent of births were to married parents, declining to 60 per cent in 2023. Choice is generally increasing when it comes to relationships, but also becoming more constrained on the family front. The choice to not be in a relationship is increasing. Whereas in the face of socioeconomic challenges, choices around building a family are more limited. Many Australians now won't achieve their desired family size because the barriers to having a much-wanted child, or subsequent child, are insurmountable. Financial and social costs of raising a child while juggling housing affordability, economic insecurity, gender inequality and climate change are just too high. The proportion of women without children over their lifetime nearly doubled from 8.5 per cent in 1981 to 16.4 per cent in 2021. On average, Australians are having fewer children than ever, with the total fertility rate at a record low of 1.5 births per woman. Changing expectations and norms concerning coupling and childbearing have enabled greater empowerment for Australians to choose whether they marry at all. Women especially benefit from more progressive attitudes towards remaining single and childfree. Costs associated with a divorce can be high, with a "cheap" marriage dissolution starting upwards of $10,000. Couples have become creative in navigating marriage break-ups during a cost-of-living crisis. Where children are present – 47 per cent of divorced couple families — parents are looking to new ways to minimise adverse social and economic consequences. "Birdnesting", where kids remain in the family home as parents rotate in and out according to care arrangements, is one such solution. Novel child-centred approaches to family separation are most successful where relationship break-ups are amicable. Around 70 per cent of separations and divorces involving children are negotiated among parents themselves. Ever-increasing numbers of Australians are living apart together (known as LATs), where they are a couple but live separately. This is particularly common among parents raising children. It's a novel solution for parents who don't want the headache of having a new partner move in with them post-divorce. Rising housing costs and widening economic insecurity mean separation may not even be an option, especially where children are involved. Research shows soaring house prices can keep people in marriages they might otherwise leave. Living under the same roof and raising children while separated is increasingly a response to financial pressures. Where relationships involve financial dependence and high conflict, such arrangements are forcing families into potentially highly volatile circumstances. Families are changing and diversifying, and policy must reflect this. Cost-of-living pressures are increasingly denying couples much-wanted families and making it more difficult for families to thrive, divorced or not. This piece first appeared on The Conversation. Liz Allen is a demographer at the POLIS Centre for Social Policy Research at the Australian National University.
News.com.au
42 minutes ago
- News.com.au
‘What a joke': Tradie's video highlights grim new Aussie housing trend
As more homes continue to be built in some of Australia's biggest cities, a new trend has emerged – prioritising value over space. More homes are being squeezed in to create suburbs in urban sprawl corridors, with developers really making the most of every inch of land, resulting in new builds that are practically touching. Melbourne-based carpenter, Judd Johnston, recently left Aussies gobsmacked after sharing a video from a site he was working on, showing mere centimetres between the house that was being built and the neighbouring home. 'So you're telling me it is going to take me 13 years to save for a house that's this close to the neighbour,' he captioned the clip. The TikTok has accumulated more than 264,000 views, sparking comments from horrified social media users. 'How is that legal?' was one of the top questions people were asking. Local council and state zoning regulations typically determine how close a house can be built to the boundary line. There are also cases where zero-lot boundary developments can be approved, meaning a structure can be built directly on or very close to the boundary lines. 'I love hearing my neighbours breathe 24/7,' one person wrote on the video. 'This is insane,' another said, with a third adding: 'Might as well share a bedroom at this point.' Others questioned why, at that point, you wouldn't just join the homes. 'At that point it should've just been a duplex. What a joke,' one person said. Mr Johnston has seen a rise in these types of developments, believing this housing trend is wiping out the Australian dream of having a big backyard with a clothes lines and a cubby house. 'Once the house is actually finished in terms of the frame, there's only enough room for brick and whatever material is going on the outside,' he told Yahoo News. 'By the time that's finished, I've seen a lot of them literally touching.' The young tradie said housing is being maximised for profit – as house sizes continue to go down, prices go up. John Brockhoff, national policy director for the Planning Institute of Australia, believes the pattern reflects wider issues in Australia's housing system. 'Australia is seeing growing pressure to increase housing supply in our cities, but this must be matched by a commitment to good planning and urban design,' he told 'We're seeing a growing mismatch between the size of our households and the type of housing that's being built. 'And, while the types of household sizes on average have been getting smaller, we continue to build some of the biggest homes in the world and this really raises concerns about how efficiently we use our land, and our infrastructure, and how affordable and sustainable our housing is.' Mr Brockhoff said the phenomenon centres mostly around capitalising on the detached block – with homeowners wanting to get a return on the asset value of their land through an investment in a detached home. Many Aussie families continue to have a preference for a freestanding property on a suburban block, he said. According to recent building activity data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the average size of Australian dwellings has been on a steady decline over the past 15 years. In 2022/23, detached homes comprised 64 per cent of all new dwelling completions, though lot sizes continue to shrink. The median capital city lot size was 391 metres squared in late 2023, while the national average for a new detached house was 250 metres squared as of March 2024. 'We tend to see that higher density in places where you can trade off that internal amenity for having a better living environment outside,' Mr Brockhoff said. 'There is also a risk of reducing trade canopy and amenity on the individual sites, but good planning makes … good access to public transport and community facilities.' Newer builds, especially those in areas like Western Sydney, need to be constructed to manage the heat, he said. 'Planning has a really important role, not just about building more homes, but building the right types of homes and the right type of places with access to services, transport and green space,' Mr Brockhoff said. 'And where that planning is done, we've got much more potential for people to make a choice.' Pictures of suburbs, such as The Ponds in Sydney's west, have emerged over the past few years showing blocks of identical freestanding homes all extremely close together. The homes pictured are crammed in with small setbacks and street verges, tiny backyards and black roofs and driveways. In many images, there are also no nearby public parks or open green spaces visible. They are mostly four-bedroom, three-bathroom properties, boasting about 280 square metres of internal living space on 300 square-metre blocks. In promotional materials, outside spaces are referred to as courtyards, not backyards, and they measure six metres by nine metres.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Tassie's top tap water supplier named with nationals now in sight
Dean Barnett The main criteria that the judges are looking for is visually. Is it a nice, clear sample? Smell comes into it, so ideally something with very little odour. And then I guess the most important criteria is taste. Is it nice and fresh and crisp, something you can drink all day? Kylie Baxter Now, let's compare quality. How does Tasmanian water rank, for example, compared to other states? Dean Barnett Well, what I can say about the IXOM Best Tasting Tap Water competition is that Tasmania has certainly held its own with two national winners in the last five years. So you're definitely producing a good drop in Tasmania, that's for sure. Kylie Baxter And so then what happens now? Does Rocky Creek compete for a national title? Dean Barnett Yeah, absolutely. So they'll go up in the national title later in November, early December. Like I mentioned before, Tasmania's got a really good track record over the last five years, the only state to have two national winners. So if I was a betting man and just going off those odds, Tasmania's in a really good position for another national title. Kylie Baxter So just for clarity, we had Fern Tree. So run us through those wins in the nationals. Dean Barnett Yeah, definitely. So Fern Tree was in 2023. They were the national winner. Rossarden, water treatment plant, 2020 national winner. And then all the states will go up against each other again in November, early December. You might go, oh, so what happens after the national competition? Once we have a winner, we submit that into a international competition. And we also use that same sample to go up against the New Zealanders because we like beating them on any occasion.
