Go FOGO grants

Program snapshot

Category: Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy 

Amounts: total pool up to $46 million

Eligible bodies: NSW Councils 

Contact: organics.recycling@epa.nsw.gov.au or info@epa.nsw.gov.au

Status: Round 1 recipients have been announced

Managed by: NSW Environment Protection Authority

Aims

Go FOGO grants support NSW councils to deliver new weekly food only (FO) or food organics and garden organics (FOGO) services to their communities. These may be households that currently have no kerbside organics bin service or households with only a garden waste collection.

Two grant rounds are planned for each year for four years starting in the second half of 2022.

The objectives of the Go FOGO grants are to:

  • support the effective rollout of weekly FOGO (or FO) services to 500,000 households that have no organics service
  • support the effective rollout of weekly FOGO (or FO) services to 1,500,000 households that have a garden only waste service
  • provide additional support to councils with a significant number of multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) to deliver additional tailored communication to these properties.

Eligible organisations

All NSW councils are eligible to apply for funding to roll out new weekly FOGO services or FO services to households that do not currently have a service. The service must be active within three years of the grant application approval.

Councils who have previously received funding under the Waste Less Recycle More organics collections grants are eligible to apply for funding to deliver new services only to households not covered by the previous funding.

Following the assessment and approval process, successful applicants are expected to be notified in early 2023.

Recipients

Round 1 awarded $6.2 million to 10 projects. Collectively these grants will provide a new weekly FOGO or food only service to nearly 290,000 households.

  • $243,650 Cessnock City Council
  • $817,150 City of Newcastle
  • $1,834,740 Cumberland City Council
  • $953,425 Inner West Council
  • $439,450 Lithgow City Council
  • $329, 060 Maitland City Council
  • $130,650 Murrumbidgee Council
  • $62,060 Muswellbrook Shire Council
  • $930,900 Riverina and Murray Joint Organisation (RAMJO) (including Berrigan, Edward River, Federation, Greater Hume Shire and Leeton Councils)
  • $467,575 Snowy Monaro Regional Council

Information session

An online information session was held in September 2022, for a copy of the presentation contact organics.recycling@epa.nsw.gov.au 

Applications

Applications were submitted via our SmartyGrants platform.

Guidelines for applicants

The Go FOGO Grant Guidelines 2022 (PDF 379KB) are provided for information only.

  • 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 10 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.
  • The collected food and garden organics must be treated at a lawful facility to make quality outputs in keeping with Circular Economy Policy principles.
  • An education campaign with three stages (pre, during and post rollout) must be implemented to encourage and support high resource recovery and the correct material in correct bin.
  • The education campaign includes food waste avoidance messaging.
  • 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 16 November 2022.

The pilot project only applications and 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)

The number of eligible households per local government area is based on households with residual waste services and without kerbside FOGO or FO + GO published in the 2019-20 Local Government Resource Recovery Data Report.

Additional funding up to $50,000 is available to councils with a large number of multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) to deliver additional tailored communication. 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 acknowledges 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. Note projects must be for a full service roll out, projects that only include pilot(s) will not be eligible.

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.

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.

Following the assessment and approval process, successful applicants are expected to be notified in early 2023.

Criteria Expected information
Project planning (25%)
  • description of existing organics services, if any
  • available processing capacity for new FOGO services
  • research and planning scoped or undertaken
  • council and community support

 

FOGO (or FO) weekly collection rollout proposal (25%)

  • preferred start date of new weekly FOGO (or FO) service
  • number of households and muti-unit dwellings that will receive the FOGO (or FO) service through this funding
  • diversion volumes anticipated, in what timeframes

 

Effective communication/ Education to support project goals (25%)

  • demonstrate a clear understanding of the target audiences
  • an ongoing education and communication strategy

Well designed monitor and evaluation plan to measure program sucess (25%)

  • clear aims and objectives
  • multiple methods to monitor and report the progress
  • a clear evaluation plan to measure the sucess

 

Clear justification for additional MUD funding of up to $50,000 (100%)- pending on success of the FOGO project application

  • number and proportion of MUDs
  • type of MUDs e.g., high rise vs villas and terraces
  • proposed additional communication with MUD residents to increase efficient and effective use of the new FOGO or FO service

Background

The NSW Government’s Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy 2041 (WaSM) introduced new requirements for councils to provide food and garden organics collections to all NSW households by 2030. It also requires large food waste generating businesses to source separate food waste by 2025. The initiatives are designed to reduce organics waste in landfill, where it generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and instead create a clean stream of a valuable resource that can be processed into compost, used to generate energy or be converted to animal feed.

The WaSM mandate supports the NSW Government’s Net Zero Plan Stage 1 goal for net zero emissions from food, garden and textile waste landfilled from 2030.

The WaSM includes a $65 million allocation to support the transition to source separation of food and garden organics and $4 million to increase food donation.

The Go FOGO grants program will provide up to $46 million to support household source separation. This recognises that households account for the largest volume of organics waste going to landfill in NSW and therefore the highest proportion of emissions.

As well as the Go FOGO grant funding, we will be delivering a range of programs to support councils to deliver the new source separated organics collection services, including:

  • Scrap Together community education funding
  • contamination management assistance
  • joint procurement assistance
  • organics infrastructure investment
  • technical advice, information and expertise
  • assistance to tap into carbon credit funding

Resources

Resources are available to support councils with rolling out organics collection services. This includes 6 online masterclasses, featuring Australian and international speakers who share their experiences on delivering FOGO.

Councils may be eligible to apply for Australia Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) that can be used as additional income from the implementation of new or enhanced FOGO collection services for households. A factsheet (PDF 327KB) and manual (PDF 1.26MB) is available to support councils with applying for ACCUs.