City of Kwinana FOGO feasibility study ‘just to make sure we’re on right path’

City of Kwinana councillors have baulked at looking how FOGO stacks up against the city’s current waste service.

The food organics and garden organics (FOGO) initiative is a cornerstone of the State Government’s Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030, which focuses on increasing resource recovery and reducing environmental harm from waste to landfill.

WA local governments have to have a waste plan that outlines how their waste services are consistent with the State Government’s strategy.

The City of Kwinana’s waste plan 2021-25 has ended and a new waste plan for 2026-36 was presented to the council at its July 22 meeting.

It was endorsed unanimously, but not before one of its actions — spending $80,000 on a feasibility study of FOGO — spooked councillors who were worried it would lock them into using FOGO.

The city has not yet adopted FOGO, voting instead in 2023 to add a garden organics (GO) bin to its general waste and recycling bins.

Cr David Acker asked what had changed since that decision.

“We’ve got a previous study that says that FOGO is too expensive, we’ve now got Kwinana waste-to-energy online, so we’re not a landfill-dependent council anymore,” he said.

“Why do we need to spend the $80,000 on a feasibility study that’s likely going to tell us that we don’t need FOGO?”

A city officer said the review would just be looking at what the city was doing now compared to what FOGO could provide.

“We were looking at just doing a feasibility to assess and make sure that we’re still travelling in the right path with the service and whether or not there would be any reason to change or deal with FOGO,” he said.

Acting CEO Doug Elkins said the review was also an attempt to make the city’s waste plan consistent with the State waste strategy and prepare it if FOGO was introduced.

“One of the reasons we did do the FOGO study originally is because the State waste strategy says everyone should be using FOGO,” he said. “We, at the time, we were not FOGO.

“The State hasn’t removed that requirement. There’s still that expectation of being consistent. So a way that we can say it’s consistent is by putting it in the plan.

“But what that plan doesn’t do is bind the council into the future.

“If, in the year that it’s planned for, council says ‘you know what, we don’t think it’s worth the money, things have changed in the government, the way our community is talking to us has changed’, the council could make the decision on that day to delay it.

“By putting it in the plan now, it gets us that consistency, but also allows us to start planning for at some point having to redo that and retest it.”

Cr Balian Miller said the State waste strategy had not yet been passed and no one had a crystal ball that could see the future.

“Little under a year ago one party was very minor and now today it’s in the poll saying it’s going to be the Opposition at the next election,” he said.

“So with things changing all the time in politics, what happens if we go ahead with this and then the government changes at the next election, they want to backflip on it.”

Mr Elkins said the review would not bind the city to FOGO and it would not be forced on the community.

“We’re not required under the current regulations to do exactly as the State thinks should be done, but we have to have some sort of consistency in the way we address waste to what the State believes to be the right way to do it,” he said.

Cr Matthew Rowse said the council of the day in 2023 made the right decision with the GO system.

“FOGO may still be a good idea, but it doesn’t mean that we have to follow the small bin or the fortnightly collection,” he said.

“We could go with FOGO and have a big bin and a weekly collection; it depends on what that feasibility study says.

“We can’t be pushed into FOGO if the council of the day does not want it.”

Kwinana’s neighbour to the north, the City of Cockburn, does not have FOGO, while aspects of FOGO in its southern neighbour the City of Rockingham has riled residents there.