Go FOGO grants

• Funding supports rollout of new FOGO (or FO) services
• The new weekly FOGO (or FO) collection will start in less than three years from the date of the grant approval.
• The new organics collection service is for a minimum of 7 years.
• The new source separated organics bin-based service will be weekly.
• All services include delivery of a kitchen caddy to the household with information on how to use the new service.
• Community education for the service introduction with three stages (pre, during and post rollout) must be implemented to support high recovery rates and low contamination risk.
• Provision for yearly education within the new organics collection contract.
• Education about what can go in the bin in line with the EPA position statement on what should and shouldn’t be disposed of in FOGO or FO bins
• Submit the grant application using SmartyGrants by 4pm 10 October 2023.

Applications that do not satisfy these conditions will be deemed ineligible and will not be funded.

Sixty percent of the grant amount will be paid on signing of the grant agreement.

A further 30% will be paid when the council provides evidence that the pre-service roll-out education has begun, and new or updated processing and collection contracts comply with the grant eligibility criteria.

The final 10% will be paid when the council provides data on the outcomes achieved in the initial months of collection, how the grant funding was used, and confirmation of the final numbers of households with a new service.  Council may choose to evaluate the outcomes of the new service through community satisfaction surveys, change in tonnage of organics collected and processed, low contamination rates in the FOGO bin, low levels of organics in the residual bin. The final report must be received within six months of commencement of the new service.

Grantees are encouraged to liaise with the EPA regularly throughout the project. We may be able to help you with information, advice and lessons from other councils that have been through the tendering and delivery processes for new FOGO services.

Available funding:

• $50 per household in single unit dwellings transitioning from no organics service to a weekly food and garden (FOGO) service
• $25 per household in multi-unit dwellings with shared bins transitioning from no organics service to weekly FOGO (or food only (FO)) services if no garden waste is generated on site) 
• $10 per household transitioning from garden organics (GO) services to weekly FOGO (or separate GO and FO collections where the GO is a minimum fortnightly and FO minimum weekly collection).

For grant governance purposes, councils are requested to base the number of eligible households per local government area on the on the number of households with residual waste services and without kerbside FOGO or FO + GO, as published in the most recent Local Government Waste and Resource Recovery Data Report, published on the EPA website. This provides the evidence base for the independent Technical Advisory Committee to determine the recommended funding amount for each successful applicant.

Additional funding (in line with the allocations shown above) providing up to 10% of the total funding may be awarded at the final milestone if the service is rolled out to more households than anticipated in the initial application. This acknowledges that due to the long timeframe between receiving funding and starting the new service, more homes may have come online. The final milestone payment will be reduced (in line with the allocations shown above) if less households than initially anticipated receive the service.

Additional funding of $50,000 is available to councils with a large number of multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) transitioning to the new service. It is available only to councils with more than 10,000 multi-unit dwellings, or where MUD’s account for more than 20% of housing stock. It recognises additional education may be required to engage residents in these properties and tailored education will be needed to address high resident turnover, culturally and linguistically diverse communities and action required in different MUD types.

The funding can be used for project investigation and planning, pilots, tender development, procurement of caddies and bins, delivery of education, audits and surveys related to the new weekly FOGO or FO service. Only full-service rollouts are funded. Projects that only involve pilots are not eligible for funding.

On completion of the project, grantees will be required to report on the percentage of funding spent on:

• preparation and planning
• bins, caddies and other infrastructure
• education
• monitoring/evaluation
• other.

If you receive the additional MUD funding, you will be required to report separately on how that funding was spent and how the service rollout of education was adapted for MUDs.

Councils are not required to demonstrate a specific co-contribution amount in order to be eligible for the Go FOGO grants. It is recognised councils will invest significant in-kind co-contributions in preparing, implementing and managing new organics collection services.

Grant funds cannot be used for items purchased or ordered before the Funding Deed has been signed by EPA and the grantee.

In addition to eligibility requirements, successful applicants will be required to sign and return a Deed of Agreement confirming commitment to comply with conditions of the funding, including:

• continue to comply with the eligibility criteria for the length of the grant agreement or pay back the funding reporting as described in the Reporting and milestone payments section of these guidelines
• hold appropriate insurance and public liability coverage
• acknowledge the support of the NSW Government on publications relating to the project, in accordance with the Deed of Agreement
• invite an NSW Government representative to any launch or public event associated with this funding.

A copy of the template grant agreement (PDF 650KB) is available.

Applications will undergo an eligibility check before being reviewed by an independent Technical Review Committee (TRC) using the criteria set out below. The dot points provide additional information on the types of considerations relevant to each criterion.

The TRC will also assess whether the project should be awarded the additional MUD funding.

The EPA Organics Unit is available to help applicants with their application. Please email us on organics.grants@epa.nsw.gov.au for assistance.