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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 785 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 17 November 2021 by Ms C.M. Rowe

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

WASTE MANAGEMENT — FOOD ORGANICS AND GARDEN ORGANICS

785. Ms C.M. ROWE to the Minister for Environment:

I refer to the McGowan government's commitment to reduce waste and meet its recycling target, including by supporting local government's transition to a three-bin food organics, garden organics system, which the City of Belmont will do in July next year. Can the minister outline to the house what local governments that have not transitioned to FOGO services can do to ensure they are doing their bit to help WA reach the recycling targets set out in the WA government's Waste avoidance and resource recovery strategy 2030?

Ms A. SANDERSON replied:

I thank the member for Belmont for her question. FOGO is a critical part of the state reaching the targets we set out in the Waste avoidance and resource recovery strategy 2030, which was launched by my predecessor Stephen Dawson. Western Australians have the unfortunate title of being among the biggest wasters in the country. Between 2014 and 2015, Western Australians generated more waste than people in any other Australian state or territory, disposed of the second-highest amounts of landfill and had equal second-lowest rates of resource recovery, or recycling. That is what instigated my predecessor to launch the Waste avoidance and resource recovery strategy 2030, which sets out very ambitious targets to reduce waste and recover more from that waste.

We plan to increase waste material recovery to 70 per cent by 2025 and 75 per cent by 2030. A really important part of that waste stream, and one of the biggest parts of the waste stream, is FOGO. FOGO stands for food organics and garden organics. FOGO systems work by recycling organic waste that would otherwise end up in landfill. Food waste disposed to landfill generates greenhouse gases, reduces landfill capacity and represents a loss of valuable organic material that would otherwise be recovered for productive use. We are making meaningful strides towards our goal of 75 per cent, but we will not get there without all metropolitan local governments getting on board and adopting the three-bin FOGO system. We will work with all those local governments that have not done it yet.

One local government that has done an outstanding job in its transition to FOGO is the City of Melville. Melville is one of 13 local governments, covering 150 000 households in Perth and the south west, to have implemented a three-bin FOGO system. Another 19 local governments have committed to transition to FOGO. Since Melville rolled out the three-bin FOGO system to all households across the city in July 2019, it has reversed its disposal and recovery ratios so that now two tonnes of FOGO are collected for each tonne of generated waste. As of September 2021, Melville's kerbside waste recovery rate was more than 65 per cent and the city reported a 23 per cent reduction in the tonnages from the garden organics verge collections and a 10 per cent reduction in recycling tonnages from fortnightly collections. FOGO helps to reduce our landfill.

Last week, the Minister for Local Government and I announced the launch of a step-by-step guide to help local governments plan and implement better practice food organics, garden organics collection services. Developed in conjunction with the Western Australian Local Government Association, the guidelines outline the entire process, from the initial stages through to the final stages of collecting FOGO. A recent report commissioned by the Waste Authority found that a high-performing, three-bin FOGO service was most effective in recovering material, achieving rates of around 65 per cent. The report also found that FOGO systems had the lowest cost per tonne recovered and produced significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than disposing waste to landfill.

The state government's $20 million Better Bins Plus: Go FOGO program will continue to provide grants to local governments to assist with their transition. I encourage all members in this place, and councillors in the Cities of Canning, Gosnells, Kwinana, Mandurah, Armadale and South Perth and the Shire of Murray, to get their hands on a copy of the step-by-step guide and help Western Australia reach its target to provide FOGO services by 2025.