Food and garden waste

People in the ACT waste thousands of dollars every year throwing away food. Your household could save up to $70 a week by avoiding food waste.

Uneaten food is also a waste of:

• land
• transport
• water
• refrigeration
• packaging.

Organic waste (food and garden waste) in landfill produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Reducing food waste is a simple way to take climate action. This will improve our waste management and help us achieve net zero emissions in the ACT by 2045.

Small steps for home

Here are some tips to make it easy for you to reduce food waste:

• Make your produce last longer with better food storage.
• Track items stored in your freezer with food storage labels [PDF 273KB].
• Keep a shopping and meal plan on your fridge.

Green bins for garden waste

Households, including some apartments and townhouses, can get a 240L green bin for garden organics.

The bins are collected from the kerbside fortnightly. At the Mugga Lane resource management centre, the green waste is mulched and composted to make nutrient-rich soil conditioners.

See what can and can’t go in your green bin .

There's a one-off $50 registration fee. But a green bin is free if you have one of these concession cards:

• Department of Veterans' Affairs Gold Card
• Centrelink Pensioner Concession Card
• MyWay Seniors Card.

Register for your green bin.

Composting

Composting at home, school and work is one way to keep food scraps and garden waste out of landfill.

Composting organic waste lowers greenhouse gas emissions from landfill. Compost is full of good bacteria, microbes and worms, which are great for improving the health of soil.

Find out how to compost.

FOGO bin collection

A food organics and garden organics (FOGO) collection pilot is servicing 5,000 households in Belconnen, Bruce, Cook and Macquarie.

FOGO helps households in the pilot recycle food scraps along with garden waste in their new FOGO bin. All the organic goodness is collected and turned into nutrient-rich compost.

Since the pilot began in November 2021, over 700 tonnes of food and garden waste has been collected. A low contamination rate of less than 0.1% means better quality compost going back into our gardens.

Read more about how the pilot is going. It’s expected a FOGO bin collection service will be rolled out to other parts of the ACT in the future.

Keeping chickens

Chooks are friendly, entertaining and help eat food scraps. They also deliver fresh eggs, valuable manure, and result in fewer flies and pests around your garden.

Chickens need:

• clean water
• food such as grass, vegetables, food scraps and insects
• small stones and gravel
• protection from the weather
• protection from predators
• a place to exercise
• a place to lay eggs
• somewhere to roost
• other chickens for company.

Green waste drop-off

If you don't have a green waste bin, or have large amounts of green waste, drop it off at:

• Mugga Lane resource management centre (Corkhill Bros)
• Canberra Sand and Gravel on Vicars Street (Mitchell) or Parkwood Road (Belconnen)
• Mitchell resource management centre on Flemington Road.

Fees may apply.