How NOT to contaminate the FOGO bin!

It’s amazing how much we are all into recycling but how little care is taken NOT to contaminate waste whether it be the yellow bin or the green bin. For the next few months our ‘Waste’ article in this newsletter will focus on easy ways to keep waste ‘clean’.

How NOT to contaminate the FOGO bin!

A huge source of contamination in the Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) green bin is those shiny, sticky labels on fruit and vegies. Why the labels cannot be organic is in itself a mystery but organic they are not.

The wise and responsible thing to do when you unpack your shopping bags, is to immediately remove all stickers and place them in the waste bin. After all, they are of no use to you. These labels often arrive in the FOGO bin attached to inedible peel on fruit e.g. citrus peel, banana skins, peach skins and so on.

The contents of the FOGO bin are sent to the other side of Melbourne for composting. Some of it comes back to Banyule for Council use. The waste is graded in terms of contamination. The worst contaminated compost ends up in landfill completely defeating the purpose of FOGO.

Last year Banyule Council was fined half a million dollars for contamination that amounted to just over one large black plastic bag of contaminants such as sticky labels and tea bags. The year before, they just avoided this penalty by having just less than a bag. Our rates pay for this! If we want rates NOT to rise, then we need to get our act together.

So, PLEASE remove the sticky labels from your fruit and veg!

Written by Robin Gale-Baker