Have you ever heard about FOGO?
FOGO stands for Food Organics and Garden Organics, or, colloquially speaking, food and green waste. You think that sounds pretty boring, or worse, even gross? Well, not so fast. Australia is one of those countries that has been making great compost products from green waste or garden organics (GO) for many years now. In fact, one could say Australia has been a pioneer in making composts from GO and is very good at it.
Have you ever bought compost or potting mix for your garden? Chances are that you have bought some well-composted GO.
Australian Native Landscapes (ANL) is one of those well-known examples which has excelled in turning “waste” into a sought-after resource. ANL has been making and selling compost for over 50 years.
Every state in Australia has some of these unsung heroes. Those include Peats in South Australia, Pine Grow and BioGro in Victoria, among others. The compost industry is alive and well in Australia. In fact, everyone talks about the circular economy and recycling. The compost industry is a living example how this works and works well.
So, you ask, what’s the point here? Why am I writing about it?
The answer is, we are about to see some dramatic changes and, if care isn’t taken, a perfectly good industry may be damaged.
Let me give you some background. I wrote about this in my article in The Fifth Estate article of 28 March 2022 where I highlighted that the NSW government had set itself a target of recycling 70 per cent of household waste by 2021. The reality was, NSW was hovering around 43 per cent recycling rates in 2021. So, we were way off the mark.
New South Wales is still not anywhere near its goal of recycling 70 per cent of household waste
In 2021, the NSW government issued a new waste strategy, the NSW Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy 2041. This new strategy aims to achieve an average recycling rate of 80 per cent across all waste streams, including household waste or MSW (municipal solid waste).
To achieve this lofty goal we need to tackle the organic fraction of household waste, in particular food waste, as it represents the largest portion of MSW currently going to landfill. The 2041 strategy also has an interim goal to halve food waste to landfill by 2030. To achieve this interim goal, the NSW EPA has mandated that all councils introduce the separate collection of food and garden organics (FOGO) by 2030.
Is that achievable?
In its accompanying Guide to Future Infrastructure Needs for the Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy 2041, the NSW EPA reported that in 2018/19 over 1.26 million tonnes of potentially recyclable organics were sent to landfill.
So, for this to be halved, we need to recycle an additional 600,000 tonnes of organic waste, mainly food organics needs to be recycled every year. Possible? As any old garbage collector might say: “Yeah…..Nah!”
The guide goes into more detail and says that to service the needs of greater Sydney by 2030 we need two medium sized enclosed composting facilities (of say 50,000 tonnes a year each), six large, enclosed composting facilities (of say around 85,000 tonnes a year each), two medium sized AD (anaerobic digestion) facilities (of 30,000 tonnes each) and four large AD facilities (of 50,000 tonnes each).
That makes 12 facilities for Sydney with a capacity of 870,000 tonnes a year. Bit confused about the numbers – 870,000 tonnes capacity for 600,000 tonnes? No worries, it’s just a plan.
Of course, most of the facilities will not be in Sydney, because land values are way too high, meaning transfer stations are also needed. These are facilities where collection vehicle loads are transferred to larger vehicles, which then take FOGO out of Sydney to the newly built facilities. So we need additional transfer station capacities for around 500,000 to 600,000 tonnes a year.
What are the chances of NSW building several transfer stations within Sydney and 12 new facilities for organic waste outside of Sydney by 2030?
Pretty slim, you say. Yep, that’s looking at it optimistically.
Let me spill the beans for you. Organic waste isn’t organic waste and the commercial sector doesn’t build these facilities on the whim of a government.
What do you mean, you say?
Stay with me as I take you on a journey describing the realities of life in business and the failure of the government to understand them.
The mandated roll-out of FOGO collections creates a number of issues.
The councils need to issue tenders for the collection of FOGO by 2030 if they want to comply with the state government policy. This creates several issues:
- If the facility location isn’t yet known (as it may not have been built by then), how can a price determination be made for receiving the FOGO and for the transport distance?
- Different facility providers may accept different levels of contamination, making it difficult to determine which FOGO can be accepted at which facility
- How can a council enter into a FOGO collection contract if it hasn’t got a transfer station and a processing facility to go to? Contracts don’t like uncertainties
- Uncertainties cost money and lead to disputes
Another issue is that the typical way an enclosed composting or anaerobic digestion facility is financed is on the back of a contract with one or more councils being: (a) long enough to secure the repayment of the finance, and (b) providing input material of the right quantity and quality to be processed successfully at the facility. This creates the following issues:
- The quality or contamination level of the FOGO collected is as yet unknown, which means the facility receiving it cannot determine what equipment and de-contamination process(es) to use to create an acceptable product (that is compost)
- That in turn means the facility is likely to offer variable pricing, depending on the quality of the material coming in, which creates the issue of how to determine the price or level of contamination (by visual inspection?) which is another source of uncertainty and potential disputes (I can see lawyers laughing all the way to the bank already)
Who takes the risk of the output (compost) being of acceptable quality to pass the regulatory hurdle, including the cost risk? Remember, this is currently a well-functioning industry. What happens if the compost requires disposal due to residual contamination?
- Who takes the regulatory risk, meaning if the EPA decides that it doesn’t like what is being accepted or produced and doesn’t allow it to be sold, or worse, decides to prosecute the processing facility owner? The NSW EPA is known for being uncompromising.
What happens to the current facilities processing GO if they do not obtain the licence change to accept FOGO and build the right type of enclosed processing facility? They may go out of business. Tough luck, or should the government think about this a bit more?
In the next article I’ll explain why the compost industry is worried, talk about how to resolve at least some of these conundrums and get some industry players’ take on this. Stay tuned!
