FOGO

Australia has a significant and growing challenge in how it manages its waste. Tonnages continue to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 6.2%, six times faster than population growth, and 2.5 times faster than GDP growth. Landfill costs are increasing due to landfill levies and landfill scarcity.

By Virginia Brunton, MRA Consulting Group MRA Consulting Group (MRA) together with a working group of food safety professionals and Freshcare, revised the Food Safety and Quality (FSQ) assurance code of practice (COP) and established criteria that allowed compost, produced under the Australian standard for composts (AS4454) to be used by farmers with Freshcare certification. […]

By James Moverley, MRA Consulting Group Three bin waste systems are becoming the norm in many regions of Australia. Melbourne and Adelaide have moved quickly to standardise 3 bin systems for Food Organics and Green Organics (FOGO) services. The NSW government has funded 3 bin systems across NSW, with the biggest uptake of the NSW […]

By Mike Ritchie – Managing Director, MRA Consulting Group The fourth Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) auction has recently been announced. This matters immensely for the waste and local government sectors. So many quality projects are working hard behind the scenes to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Whether that’s a third bin diverting organics out of […]

By Virginia Brunton – Principal Consultant (Organics), MRA Consulting Group Freshcare is the fresh produce industry’s own on-farm assurance program adopted by thousands of fresh produce businesses as their key food safety program. In addition to the Food Safety and Quality (FSQ) assurance code of practice (COP) to ensure safe fruit and vegetables, Freshcare also […]

By Virginia Brunton – Principal Consultant (Organics) and Mike Ritchie – Director, MRA Consulting Group The Great Barrier Reef is exposed to increasing pressures from climate change, rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, land-based runoff and other pressures. The summer of 2016 has been bad for the Great Barrier Reef (the Reef), one of Australia’s most […]

The new Source Separated Organics (SSO) methodology has seen tremendous uptake in the countdown to the next Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) auction. The SSO methodology provides funding to projects that divert organic waste from landfill. Twenty-seven new, expanded and/or aggregated projects under the methodology diverting source separated organics were registered by MRA Consulting Group (MRA), […]

Virginia Brunton recently joined the MRA team, bringing with her over 25 years experience in organics research, industry development and engagement with farmers, producers and policy makers. Virginia will lead MRA Organics with a focus on: council organics and compost services, recovered organics market expansion solutions for businesses advice to government and industry grant funding […]

The Albury Wodonga region is the best in both NSW and Victoria for household recycling. That’s according to a recent audit of kerbside household waste, which shows that total diversion rates of the four councils that introduced a combined food and garden organics service this year was 82% on average. The councils that achieved this […]

The Department of the Environment has finally released a draft of the Source Separated Organic Waste Determination for public consultation today. Generate ACCUs for diverting organic waste from landfill The Source Separated Organics Method allows organisations to gain ACCU credits for activities that involve the diversion of organic material from landfill. Abatement is calculated as […]

The councils of the Albury Wodonga region have set the “best practice” benchmark for food and garden waste (FOGO) recycling in Australia. Recent data comparing the Albury Wodonga food and green waste contamination rate to other councils that have introduced similar services, shows that the region is performing better than all others, with a current […]

The rollout of new food and garden (FOGO) waste collection systems is stressful for many councils. MyWaste shows it does not need to be. For many residents, wheeling out and collecting their bins each week represents their most significant interaction with Council. This is a learned behaviour established over many years. Subsequently, changes to collection […]