Cleaning the World from Home

Google Maps contribution stories
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:recycle: Who likes recycling? I love recycling and like many people around the world, I have enjoyed recycling household waste in my home city of Sydney for many years. I love separating plastics, paper and aluminium, knowing that my little contributions everyday make a difference for my local environment and the world. However, I have never been comfortable enough to compost my food waste. The idea of it made me squirm :beetle: I just couldn’t deal with the whole concept of it and especially the gross smell… eww… :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

I was pleasantly surprised when my home town Randwick City Council introduced a brand new waste management system in March 2021 which changed the way we think about household waste.

For many years we have had three bins; Red for general household waste, Yellow for recyclables and Green for garden waste. Our bins have stayed the same but instead of throwing out our food scraps into the Red bin, we now throw it into the Green bin, along with the garden waste.

The new Green bin is called FOGO which is an acronym for:

Food

Organics

Garden

Organics

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As residents of Randwick City Council we have all received a free kitchen caddy bin along with compostable bags and instructions on what we need to do. I can finally compost my food scraps without having to deal with the gross smell. Hooray!

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Things I can put into my FOGO bin:

Garden waste, food scraps, meat scraps and bones, eggs and dairy products, used paper towel and tissues, shredded and soiled paper, soiled pizza boxes, pet waste.

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Why has Randwick City Council decided to make these changes to our waste management service?

Here are a couple of questions and answers which helped me to understand:

Q: What’s wrong with food waste going to landfill?

A: Food waste degrades in landfills and produces harmful greenhouse gases.

Q: What are the benefits of FOGO?

A: When FOGO waste is collected separately, FOGO can be processed into compost that can be used for food production, parks and sportsfields.

The new waste management plan by Randwick City Council has made me super happy.

Do you have a similar waste management system in your home town?

Is this something you would like to do as well?

Let me know in the comments below.

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Hi @PennyChristie

You may like to hear that from today selling single use plastic utensils and plates has been banned. I believe the regulation is an European union initiative.

Cheers

Morten

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@MortenCopenhagen que buena noticia :tada:

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Great post, @PennyChristie

In my area we have door to door collection services for organic waste twice per week.

Organic waste are treated separately on the waste treatment center, to produce fertilizers. With a residual product of the bacterial digestion (this is how they call the process) you can obtain organic bags. Funny, isn’t it? The process has been under test for years by Padua University, and has been made public during the activities organised by my no profit association for the festival of sustainability 2019 in Venice.

It is great that your country is moving a step forward about environment. I love the description and the photos you shared with us. This is a good step for the environmental, easy to achieve. :clap: :clap: :clap:

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hello @PennyChristie

i am part of this type of waste management since 2017 in India. I aware people to dig compost pit, who love to like homegrown vegetables.

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That’s amazing news @MortenCopenhagen and makes me happy to hear :star_struck:

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Wow @ErmesT this is great and makes me happy to hear about the waste collection system in your hometown being picked up twice a week and used for fertiliser and also made into organic bags. It’s very funny :smile:

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That’s fantastic @nishnkd I hope more of the world does this as well :blush:

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@PennyChristie . Great initiative by your city management. Necessity is the mother of invention. Main thing is that you are following that system perfectly. Great job. Slowly this movement will spread everywhere

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Thank you for your encouraging words @Reallylucky

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O recipiente a que chamam fogo trata se de um compostur e nele não se deve introduzir os dejectos dos cães pois podem ser patógenos e contaminar as hortas com alimentos dos quais nos alimentamos. Se os usarmos tem de atingir temperaturas de penso 70 graus celsius e só servem para jardins se estiverem afastados das hortas. Por isso atenção a uma informação errada que e transmitida por uma local guide