Find Out if Your Council Composts

Compost Connect has joined forces with compostable packaging supplier BioPak and has released brand new data detailing what types of residential composting is offered across Australia.

Search your council using the table below and find out if they offer garden waste and/or food waste composting collection from your home, also known as Food Organics & Garden Waste (FOGO).

Did you know that 80 councils in Australia accept compostable packaging in their residential, as detailed below?

If your council does not compost, sign our petition below to let them know it’s important to you.

Australian Councils Composting Food & Packaging

ACT

Council	Garden Waste	Food Scraps	Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging	PLA Compostable Packaging
Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Parkes Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗

NSW

Council	Garden Waste	Food Scraps	Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging	PLA Compostable Packaging
Albury City Council	✓	✓	✗	✗
Ballina Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Bathurst Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Bega Valley Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Broken Hill City Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Cessnock City Council	✓	FOGO coming March 2024	✗	✗
City of Wagga Wagga	✓	✓	✓	✓
Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Dubbo Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Federation Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Forbes Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Goulburn Mulwaree Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Gwydir Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Kempsey Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Kiama Municipal Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Lake Macquarie City Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Lismore City Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Lockhart Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Mid-Western Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Moree Plains Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Narrabri Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Penrith City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Randwick City Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Richmond Valley Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Shellharbour City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Snowy Valleys Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Wollongong City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓

QLD

Council	Garden Waste	Food Scraps	Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging	PLA Compostable Packaging
City of Gold Coast	✓	Commercial FO (Food organics) available for Main Beach, Southport, Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach	✗	✗
Ipswich City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Lockyer Valley Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Redland City Council	✓	✗	✗	✗

Council	Garden Waste	Food Scraps	Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging	PLA Compostable Packaging
Adelaide Hills Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Adelaide Plains Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Alexandrina Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Campaspe Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Campbelltown City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Adelaide	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Burnside	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Charles Sturt	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Holdfast Bay	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Marion	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Mitcham	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Mount Gambier	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Onkaparinga	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Playford	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Port Adelaide Enfield	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Prospect	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Salisbury	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Tea Tree Gully	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Unley	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Victor Harbor	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of West Torrens	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Whyalla	✓	✓	✓	✓
District Council of Yankalilla	✓	✓	✓	✓
Kangaroo Island Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Light Regional Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Mount Barker District Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Murraylands & Riverland Local Government Association	✓	✓	✓	✓
Naracoorte Lucindale Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Port Augusta City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
The Barossa Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
The Rural City of Murray Bridge	✓	✓	✓	✓
Town of Gawler	✓	✓	✓	✓
Town of Walkerville	✓	✓	✓	✓
Wattle Range Council	✓	✓	✓	✓

TAS

Council	Garden Waste	Food Scraps	Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging	PLA Compostable Packaging
City of Hobart	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Launceston	✓	✓	✗	✗
Glenorchy City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Meander Valley Council	✓	✓	✗	✗
West Tamar Council	✓	✓	✗	✗

Council	Garden Waste	Food Scraps	Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging	PLA Compostable Packaging
City of Bunbury	✓	✓	✓	✓
City of Fremantle	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Melville	✓	✓	✓	✗
Shire of Augusta-Margaret River	✓	✓	✓	✓
Shire of Capel	✓	✓	✓	✓
Shire of Collie	✓	✓	✓	✓
Shire of Donnybrook-Balingup	✓	✓	✓	✗
Shire of Harvey	✓	✓	✓	✓
Town of East Fremantle	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Wanneroo	✓	✗	✗	✗

VIC

Council	Garden Waste	Food Scraps	Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging	PLA Compostable Packaging
Bass Coast Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Campaspe Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
City of Greater Bendigo	✓	✓	✓	✓
Wodonga City Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Indigo Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Macedon Ranges Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Mildura Rural City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Moyne Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Southern Grampians Shire Council	✓	✓	✓	✗
Wangaratta Rural City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓
Warrnambool City Council	✓	✓	✓	✓

What Can Be Composted?

Garden Waste

Weeds, lawn clipping, dead plants, branches, stick,s dead flowers, grass clippings, leaves, small shrubs, anything that has come from your garden. Make sure to check what your council accepts.

Food Scraps

Banana peels, apple cores, potato skins, pizza crusts, old leftovers, bread, baked goods, coffee grinds, tea leaves, avocado pits, rice, pasta meat, bones. Make sure to check what your council accepts.

Fibre-Based Compostable Packaging

Cardboard, paperboard, sugarcane, bamboo. Anything fibre based packaging that is not lined with plastic, make sure you check!

PLA Compostable Packaging

Certified compostable PLA bioplastic cold clear cups, certified compostable coffee cups and lids. Make sure you look for the compost certifications logo.

Why We All Need to Compost

Get Organics Out of Landfill

Did you know when food waste is sent to landfill, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Composting Reverses Climate Change

Compost rejuvenates soil which absorbs carbon out of the atmosphere.

Reduce Your Household Waste

60% of household bins contain organic waste that can otherwise be composted.This is a great way to reduce your personal carbon emissions.

Take Action if Your Council is Not Composting

The National Waste Policy Action Plan has created a target to halve organics from landfills by 2030 and states and territories have agreed to introduce Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) collection services to all households and businesses by the end of 2023.

Initially this sounds great, but this is just a suggestion, not a mandate and it’s up to individual councils to put an organics collection program in place.

Organic waste like food scraps and compostable packaging are a valuable resource ending up in landfill, that could otherwise be turned into nutrient-rich compost and put back into the ground to make our world a cleaner place! Composting will result in more jobs, in fact, composting creates 10 times more jobs than the regular waste stream.

We know it is frustrating that your council doesn’t currently offer composting, but there are a few things you can do to take action and push your council to expand their offering of waste collection.

First, sign this petition saying you would like your council to start composting. Secondly, send an email directly to local MP, here’s a template you can use. Finally, share this page with everyone you know and help us get every single council in Australia to start composting now!

Stay Informed

If you want to further support this campaign, read these inspiring articles on how other councils have introduced composting and what the government is doing.

Australian Councils Composting