During Estimates, Greens MLA and spokesperson for the circular economy Jo Clay interrogated delays to the Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) composter. These delays set the Territory up for climate failure.
The ACT Government had committed to recover household food waste from 2023, as written in this term’s Parliamentary and Governing Agreement. This has been delayed until 2026. Yesterday afternoon in Estimates, Ms Clay heard a procurement is under way to test options, but it looks likely to lock the ACT into this delayed course rather than finding alternative, speedier options.
“We’re in a climate crisis. Organic waste accounts for almost one-tenth of our emissions, so we cannot delay action to reduce its impact,” said Ms Clay.
“The Government yesterday acknowledged that quicker rollout of FOGO would bring instant emissions reductions. The longer we leave it, the longer we will see emissions from landfill. If we’re still sending organic waste to landfill in 2026, that waste will still be generating emissions in 2046. How does this match up with our net zero emissions by 2045 target?
“The ACT has a thriving local compost sector. We have solid results from the ACT Government’s collection and processing pilot in Belconnen. We could move to reduce FOGO going to landfill earlier if we looked at interim options that don’t rely on a large specialist composter. The City of Sydney is finding innovative solutions to prevent FOGO going to landfill, for instance they’ve announced they’ll process household food waste via insect farming. Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury MLA and I recently approached the Minister for City Services to explore this and other alternatives. But while claiming to look at alternative options, the Government continues to procure contracts that will see no action until late this decade.
“The ACT Government is already going out to market for a large-scale industrial composter but admit it’s unlikely they will deliver this industrial composter until 2026. There are other options. But how can Government consider these and weigh up whether they are value-for-money, if they are procuring based on a large industrial composter?
“We can take real climate action now. We might even find we don’t need the industrial composter and we might save Canberrans the cost of it.
“Greens in government transformed government policy to put us on an Australian-first pathway to electrify everything. It’s a great approach to get us off climate damaging gas. We need this same proactive approach when it comes to waste, particularly when we meet major delays like this.”
