FAQs

FOGO stands for Food Organics and Garden Organics and is your upcoming household waste collection service. FOGO helps every resident to dispose of their food and garden waste in a way that doesn't contribute unnecessarily to landfill.

Each week, your Green lid FOGO bin will be collected as part of the regular household waste collection. 

You can find out more by visiting our FOGO website.

About 40% of all the general waste produced by our households is food waste. When this is placed in your Red lid bin and sent to landfill, it degrades and generates environmentally harmful greenhouse gases.

When FOGO waste is collected and processed, it is turned into compost and soil conditioner, creating a nutrient rich resource, rather than rotting in landfill.

The introduction of FOGO aligns with Sutherland Shire Council's Waste Strategy, which focuses on reducing waste to landfill, improving resource recovery, and supporting a circular economy. By separating food and garden organics, the community is taking a step toward achieving long-term sustainability goals for the region.

FOGO waste is processed and treated to create high-quality compost and soil conditioner. We then use that compost in our community and beyond, to improve fields, parks and farms.

This nutrient rich resource reduces environmentally harmful greenhouse gases by stopping food waste from your Red bin being sent to landfill. 

You can put food and organic waste in your Green lid FOGO bin. See the full list on our website (as well as what you can’t put in the Green lid FOGO bin) 

How does FOGO work? | Sutherland Shire Council 

For now, sit tight. Our team are working through the details to bring the first stage of this new service to residents from late 2026. 

Continue using your Green lid bin for garden waste and your Red lid bin for food waste for now. We will provide plenty of information and education before the introduction of FOGO so that you know when the service starts.

We have lots of tips and tricks to help reducing your food waste on our website. 

• Red lid bin for general waste will stay a weekly service collection
• Green lid garden bin becomes your Green lid FOGO bin and will change to a weekly service collection.
• Yellow lid bin for mixed recyclables will stay the same and remain a fortnightly service collection.

We will have a staged rollout across Sutherland Shire – starting with houses – from late 2026.

FOGO waste will be taken to a processing facility to begin treatment and testing to create healthy compost and soil conditioner that will be used around the community and farms.

We’re confident we’ve identified the best way for rolling out FOGO in Sutherland Shire.

A staged approach will make sure impacts are reduced for this once in a generation change to waste services for our community.

We are seeking feedback to make sure we have the right fit for this new waste service for our community.