FOGO FAQs

FOGO stands for Food Organics and Garden Organics. City of Parramatta is rolling out a new green lid FOGO bin, that will replace your current green lid garden organics bin, from November 2024. Instead of placing your food waste in the red lid garbage bin, residents can recycle their food scraps (vegetables, fruits, meat, bread, eggshells etc) and garden matter (flowers, leaves) in the green lid FOGO bin.

Residents living in houses, duplexes, townhouses and unit buildings with less than 30 dwellings will receive new bins from late-July to October 2024. Residents living in unit buildings with more than 30 dwellings will be receiving new bins at a later stage.

Plenty of educational materials can be downloaded from our website. We can also provide hardcopies of any materials to you. Please email fogo@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au with any specific enquiries you have.

The FOGO waste collection service will begin from November 2024 for houses, duplexes, townhouses and unit buildings with less than 30 dwellings.

To prepare for this new service, residents will receive their new bins – green FOGO bin, red garbage bin and yellow recycling bin from July in preparation for FOGO to begin in November. They will receive their FOGO kitchen caddy from October.

The FOGO waste collection service is mandatory. Council is requesting every resident play their part to reduce landfill and benefit the environment.

This change is happening right across the state as the NSW Government has mandated all councils in the state implement FOGO waste collection services by 2030. A number of councils across Sydney and regional areas have already implemented FOGO and they are seeing the benefits with a significant reduction in landfill.

The new waste collection service including FOGO collection and bin roll out is being funded from the Domestic Waste Management Reserve. Council has been building this Reserve in anticipation of the cost associated with delivering the new service and to ensure no sudden cost impacts for our households.

Check the website for your bin collection day.

• Yellow lid recycling bin: The yellow lid recycling bin will be collected fortnightly.
• Green lid FOGO bin: The green lid FOGO bin will be collected weekly.
• Red lid garbage bin: The red lid garbage bin will be collected weekly.

If you or your neighbours have not had your old, green-bodied bins removed after receiving the new black-bodied bins, please request a bin removal by clicking the link below, go to Waste, Waste Collection Service and go to the Waste Bin Remove section.

Request a bin removal

Important: Council’s trucks will no longer be emptying green-bodied bins for properties that have received the new black-bodied bins. Please ensure your old bin is placed out empty for collection once your removal request has been submitted.

We understand that proper bin placement is important to our residents, and we are working closely with our waste collection contractor, Veolia, to improve this process.

To enhance service quality, we are ensuring that drivers receive the necessary training and that the new trucks are calibrated to return bins as close to their original position as possible after collection.

All houses are part of the first phase of the FOGO waste collection service.

You will receive a new set of bins to prepare for the FOGO waste collection service. A red lid garbage bin, yellow lid recycling bin, and a green lid FOGO bin will be delivered from late July to October. A green lid kitchen caddy, with compostable liners, will be delivered in late October/November.

Unit buildings with up to 30 dwellings are part of the first phase of the FOGO waste collection service. If you reside in a unit building with up to seven dwellings, please confirm your preferred size of your red lid garbage bin here.

If you live in a unit building with more than seven units, you will be provided 240L bins to share and you will not need to specify your bin size.

Bins will be shared as follows:

• Red garbage bin – 1 x 240L bin per 3 apartments (ie 80L capacity per unit)
• Yellow recycling bin – 1 x 240L bin per 2 unit (ie 120L capacity per unit)
• Green FOGO bin – 1 x 240L bin per 5 units

You will receive a new set of bins to prepare for the FOGO waste collection service. A red lid garbage bin, yellow lid recycling bin, and a green lid FOGO bin will be delivered from late July to October. A green lid kitchen caddy, with compostable liners, will be delivered in late October/November.

Unit buildings with more than 30 dwellings will begin their FOGO waste collection service in 2025-2026. You do not need to do anything further in 2024.

Please note if your building is greater than 7 units / dwellings and has individual garbage bins and/or a limited communal waste storage area or other unique bin storage arrangement, please have your body corporate or strata manager contact Council at fogo@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au

Council can then inspect the property on an individual basis to work out a solution.

Property owners can find their property assessment number on previous rates notices and instalment notices. This can be found on the top right-hand side of the document. Alternatively, call the Customer Contact Centre on 1300 617 058.

We want to make this change as smooth as possible for renters and landowners. But given the decision to opt for a larger bin will be reflected in the waste charges that go into rates, it’s only appropriate that decision is approved by the ratepayer. Please contact your real estate agent or landlord for them to purchase a larger bin option on your behalf.

Whether you rent or own, with the introduction of the FOGO waste collection service, residents will put their food scraps in the green lid FOGO bin instead of the red lid garbage bin. This change is expected to reduce the volume of waste going into the red lid garbage bin by up to 40%.

You’ll also get increased capacity moving from 760L per fortnight to 880L per fortnight across your red, yellow and green bin – an increase of 120L extra bin space.

Please visit Waste Management and FOGO Guide for Renters for more information.

To arrange for the upgrade/downgrade of your preferred size of the red-lid garbage bin, house and townhouse, visit Bin Requests.

If you are renting, please contact your real estate agent or landlord to request changes to your red-lid garbage bin size.

Bins have an average lifespan of around 10 years and whilst bins in some properties are in a satisfactory condition, there are many others that require ongoing maintenance. Council has taken the opportunity to schedule an LGA-wide bin replacement program as a part of the FOGO rollout.

Providing households with new bins at the same time helps reduce the number of emissions associated with bin repair and replacement delivery over the expected lifespan of the bins. This is the most efficient way to ensure the majority of the bins are of acceptable quality for the next 10 years and to minimise repair costs. All old bins will be recycled.

No, you must keep using your old red lid bin until it has been collected. Your old red lid garbage bin (green bodied) will be taken away from 11 November 2024. From this date, only the new black bodied bins will be emptied on bin day.

If you have received your new bins and your old bins have not been removed, please continue to leave them out the day after collection day until they have been removed. All old bins will be recycled.

Yes, the property owner can order an extra bin for an additional charge which is payable via their rates notice. Please refer to fees and charges for various charges.

The new bins will be rolled out from late-July to October.

You can use your new bins once your old bins have been collected. Remember, don’t put food scraps into your green lid FOGO bin until FOGO commences from 11 November.

The replacement process will take place from late July until end of November 2024, utilising the existing bin collection schedule. Given the size of the Parramatta Council area, you may have your existing (old) and new bins onsite temporarily as we work through the deliveries and collections.

We understand this may present storage challenges especially for unit complexes where space is limited. We will be working to remove these as soon as possible, however if they are becoming a problem, please contact us and we can prioritise the bin removal.

We understand that this is a big change for our community and are working hard to minimise any disruptions. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

For any enquiries, please email fogo@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au or call (02) 9806 5050.

Please see FAQs listed below. If you would like to get in touch with a specific question, please contact fogo@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au or call (02) 9806 5050.

No, you do not have to use a compostable liner in your kitchen caddy or to place food waste in your green lidded FOGO bin.

Putting food waste into your green lidded FOGO bin loose is the most environmentally friendly way to FOGO.

It is recommended that you first line your bin with garden waste to reduce smells absorb liquid and deter pests.  And rinse your caddy and FOGO bin out after emptying to keep them fresh.

Your kitchen caddy is a small container that Council can provide to you free of charge and is designed to be placed on your kitchen benchtop. This means you can easily put in food scraps during meal preparation and any leftover scraps when cleaning up after your meal.

Once your caddy is full, empty it into your large green-lid FOGO bin, put a new liner in your caddy and start collecting food waste again.

Your new kitchen caddy has a 7-litre capacity and is 225mm (L) x 225mm (W) x 235mm (H), which will fit nicely on your kitchen counter.

Council will provide residents with a FOGO 'starter pack' including one FOGO kitchen caddy and two packs of liners. Every six months you will receive one pack of liner, and you can collect extra kitchen caddy liners throughout the year from any City of Parramatta library.

Compostable liners that meet Australian Standard AS4736 with the seedling logo can also be purchased and used in your caddy.

All households (houses, duplexes, townhouses and unit buildings with less than 30 dwellings) will be allocated a new 80L red lid garbage bin or the equivalent of 80L red lid garbage bin per household. Property owners can complete a form to opt-in for a 140L red lid garbage bin and pay the same as they are currently paying as part of the domestic waste charge in their rates notice.

Property owners can opt-in to receive a 140L red lid garbage bin at any time.

The green lid FOGO bin is a standard size of 240L. You can request an additional green bin service for an additional cost; it is currently $129.99 a year payable via the domestic waste charge on the rates notice.

We encourage you to compost at home. Council offers compost tutorials and subsidised compost products to residents. Find out more at Compost Revolution

The standard red lid garbage bin size is 140L, both your existing yellow lid recycling bin and green lid garden organics bin is 240L. To understand what size bin you currently have, look at the rim on your existing bin base where it will be hot stamped with the size.

Residents living in unit buildings with less than seven dwellings will receive a new yellow lid recycling bin and green lid FOGO bin. Residents will receive an 80L red lid garbage bin unless they opt-in to a 140L or 240L red lid garbage bin. 

Households which currently have a 240L red lid garbage bin will be automatically provided with a 240L red lid garbage bin unless you contact Council to change the size of your bin.

Residents living in unit buildings with more than eight dwellings will be provided with shared bins and a ‘collect and return’ service. The ratio is 1 x 240L red lid garbage bin between three dwellings, 1 x 240L yellow lid recycling bin between two dwellings and 1 x 240L green lid FOGO bin between five dwellings.

If you do not think the shared garbage bin arrangement or bin number will work for your unit complex due to storage constraints, Council can assess and review the shared bin arrangement. The authorised strata manager or owner's corporation will need to put the request in writing to Council at fogo@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au on behalf of all the owners and residents in the block.