Funding to speed up compost program

Adding an extra 2500 Geraldton households to the council’s FOGO waste trial is one step closer to reality, thanks to a State Government grant that will expand the size of the composting zone at Meru Waste Facility.

Currently, 530 households take part in the Food Organic Garden Organic trial. But boosting it to beyond 3000 homes is the aim after the City of Greater Geraldton received a $176,000 Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery WasteSorted grant.

The funding will be used to increase the size of the concrete pad and bunkers required to turn FOGO waste into compost.

The expansion is needed to cater for the 2500 extra households by 2021-22.

A community survey last July found more than 75 per cent of respondents backed the introduction of a city-wide FOGO waste collection.

Six months into the trial, bin monitoring over six weeks showed the majority of participants are correctly separating FOGO waste from general waste.

Geraldton mayor Shane Van Styn said two challenges will need to be overcome before a full city-wide rollout was considered — the fortnightly collection of general waste affecting some residents negatively and the production of Australian Standard compost.

“Although the majority of participants didn’t find this to be a problem, the fortnightly collection of general waste is proving challenging for some households who said despite some recycling efforts and FOGO waste separation their general waste bin was still filling up every week,” he said.

The City aims is to achieve a 60 per cent diversion of waste from landfill by 2030.