Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO)

Trial commencing March 2027

Mount Barker District Council is excited to announce a trial of a weekly Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO) green bin collection service commencing in March 2027. The trial aims to encourage the correct use of the current 3-bin system by supporting our community to put food and garden organics in the green FOGO bin and send less waste to landfill.

Anything that grows (or once grew) belongs in the green-lidded FOGO bin, most importantly food! This is collected by SOLO and taken to a local commercial composting facility where it is turned into compost to be used in South Australia.

The trial will start in March 2027 and will include all the Monday bin collection zone.

Under the trial, which is being co-funded by Green Industries SA, properties in the townships will have their green FOGO bins collected weekly while red and blue general waste bins will move to a fortnightly service.

In the surrounding rural areas, a fortnightly green FOGO service will be introduced for the first time, and red and blue general waste bins will move from weekly to fortnightly collection.

Yellow recycling collections in both the townships and surrounding rural areas will remain unchanged with a continuing fortnightly service.

FOGO Trial Collection Frequency

Council will implement a comprehensive public education campaign to raise awareness among residents before the trial begins next March.

This campaign includes a series of community information sessions. For information about when and where these sessions have been or are being held in future, please refer to the table below.

Upcoming Community Engagement

Past Community Information Sessions

Council will also provide educational resources, and attend community events in the trial area, to increase residents’ understanding of the new waste collection schedule.

The trial was approved at the 3 August 2026 Council meeting. You can read the agenda and minutes here.

Why a trial?

The trial helps Council understand how a weekly FOGO service would work. It also allows us to track landfill and FOGO tonnages to evaluate the financial and environmental benefits of a trial service, supporting well-informed decisions for future waste services.

This trial is being conducted because there are numerous benefits to weekly FOGO collection:

• Reduces landfill volumes - More food scraps, garden waste and compostable packaging going into the green FOGO bin means less is wasted in landfill.
• Increased capacity - this new service provides an additional 240L of green FOGO bin space per fortnight, and an overall increase in bin capacity of 100L per fortnight.
• Ease of use - Township households will have their FOGO bin collected weekly, so bins are still put out on the kerb as normal, there is just a change in which bins go out each week.
• Improves environmental sustainability - The contents of the FOGO bin are turned into valuable compost, rather than being wasted in landfill. When food scraps are composted, they break down quickly. In contrast, when food scraps go to landfill, they break down slowly and release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and use of valuable landfill capacity.
• Creates local jobs - our local composting contractor creates and supports more jobs than landfill sites. Compost is used by our community on local farms and on vineyards and orchards to improve the soil quality and increase productivity.

What goes in the Green FOGO Bin?

The green FOGO bin is for organic material that can be commercially composted. This includes food scraps such as fruit, vegetables, meat, bones and shells, garden organics such as leaves, branches and lawn clippings, as well as compostable takeaway packaging e.g. pizza boxes, tissues and paper towels.

If you are not sure what goes in each bin, visit the Which Bin website at: whichbin.sa.gov.au