City of Fremantle
Coastal Charm
The three-bin Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO) system was rolled out to over 11,000 City of Fremantle households in September 2019. FOGO is the collection of food scraps (FO) and organic garden (GO) waste.
The three-bin FOGO system provides residents with more options for separating their waste with the aim to improve recovery rates, increase diversion from landfill and reduce costs of processing material. By collecting organics in the FOGO bin, we generate high quality compost to use on farms, parks and gardens and avoid organic waste going to landfill, which produces harmful methane gas.
The three-bin system includes:
All food organics including raw and cooked, bread, dairy, bones, shells, and garden organics. FOGO waste is composted so it’s important to keep plastic, metal and glass out of this bin. All food waste is to go into your FOGO bin either in a compostable liner, wrapped in newspaper or loose in the bin. Please make sure food is removed from the packaging before being placed in the bin as any plastic packaging can contaminate the compost.
Accepted:
Remove food from the packaging before placing it into the FOGO bin. No plastic, glass (including compostable food packaging) or metal in this bin.
Visit the compostable caddy liner FAQs below to find out about replacement caddy liners.
All items that go into the yellow-lidded recycling bin need to be clean, dry, and empty:
Extra yellow bin recyclables can be dropped off at the Fremantle Recycling Centre on Montreal Street free of charge.
If you find the capacity of your recycling bin is an issue, you can request an upgrade to a larger 360L recycling bin by contacting the City on 1300 MY FREO (1300 693 736) or email info@fremantle.wa.gov.au. Fees apply.
General rubbish items that cannot be composted or recycled, such as nappies, meat trays, polystyrene, plastic bags, long-life tetra pak cartons, phone books, and soft plastics.
For a full list of items, visit Recycle Right.
Some items should not be placed into any of your bins and instead, can be dropped off at Fremantle Recycling Centre.
Find out more about how to use and replace your bins and what happens to the waste you put in them.
A caddy is provided free for new properties or new FOGO services. Lost or damaged caddies are $6.80 (valid through 24/25 financial year) each and can be obtained from the Fremantle Recycling Centre.
To find out more about replacing your compostable caddy liners download our hand flyer below:
Residents are required to place bins on the kerb by 6am on bin collection day.
Bins need to be brought back behind the property line within a reasonable amount of time after collection.
Bins left on the verge, street and footpath can block access to dwellings and pose hazards to pedestrians within the area.
Please be aware that choosing to leave bins within the street contravenes the City’s Health Local Laws.
Ordering new waste and/or recycling bin(s) for a new property or replacing a damaged or lost bin can be arranged by completing our online form.
Multi-unit developments (MUD) residents will need to complete a MUD application for waste and recycling bins instead.
The City upgraded its bin system to the three-bin system, with FOGO, to capture food organics in 2019. Less than 0.5% of the City’s properties remained on the old system which contains a dark green lidded landfill bin, and a yellow lidded recycling bin. This may be due to service requirements. If you want to include FOGO, then please get in touch with Waste Services.
What to do with your food waste? All of the items listed under the FOGO bin can be placed into your dark green lidded landfill bin.
No. All City of Fremantle waste management services is covered by your rates.
On average, 50-60% of the waste we put into our general waste bin is FOGO material. When food and garden waste is sent to landfill, it generates harmful methane gas and contributes to higher processing costs through landfill fees.
Residents are encouraged to use their FOGO bin to ensure we can recover as much organic waste as possible and convert this material into much need compost. All your food waste including leftovers, peelings, cooked and raw meat, bones, shells, bread, seafood and dairy products can go into your FOGO bin, along with paper products like tissues, napkins, shredded paper, soiled newspaper and soiled pizza boxes.
If there’s not much going in your FOGO bin each week, you may wish to speak to your neighbour to see if you can set up a sharing arrangement.
We encourage you to compost at home, however, you can use your lime green-topped FOGO bin for things you can’t put in your home compost bin, like bones, meat and seafood.
Even if you don’t have a lot of food or garden waste, residents are encouraged to use their FOGO bin to ensure we can recover as much organic waste as possible. If food and garden waste is sent to landfill, it generates harmful methane gas and contributes to higher processing costs through landfill fees.
All your food waste including leftovers, peelings, cooked and raw meat, bones, shells, bread, seafood and dairy products can go into your FOGO bin, along with paper products like tissues, napkins, shredded paper, soiled newspaper and soiled pizza boxes.
If you find there’s not much going in your FOGO bin each week, you may wish to speak to your neighbour to see if you can set up a sharing arrangement.
If you find you don’t have enough space in your FOGO bin, contact the City’s Waste Management Team on 9432 9999.
In addition to the organics collection service provided through your FOGO bin, the City also provides Bulk Garden Organics pickups which are scheduled twice per year.
The material is processed in Canning Vale through a commercial composting facility and undergoes manual sorting where any items that don’t belong in the FOGO bin are removed. The system is only set up to remove a very small amount of contamination. If the amount of items that shouldn’t be placed into the FOGO bins increases substantially, the quality of the compost can be compromised and won’t be able to meet Australian Standards. The compost material is then processed and blended into products for the market by a contractor, to Australian Standard AS4454.
This Recycle Right YouTube video shows how your FOGO material is processed from your FOGO bin to compost.
Or see this recycling video.
Yes (subject to availability). The sale of FOGO derived compost is for sale at the Fremantle Recycling Centre for $5 per 25-litre bag.
The bags contain 30% FOGO-derived material from the FOGO bins in the City of Fremantle, City of Melville and Town of East Fremantle. By using this compost, residents are closing the loop on their food and garden waste.
Bin flyers are available in: Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, Cantonese, Chinese Simplified, English, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Macedonian, Punjabi, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
Contact the Waste team to get your copy.
