- Garden waste - lawn clippings and prunings, even weeds with seeds, runners or bulbs.
- Food waste - fruit and veg scraps, but also the stuff that can’t easily be processed in a home compost system including meat, bread, rice, cheese, fish guts and bones.
- Pet waste - dog poos, compostable poo bags and compostable kitty litter.
- Compostable packaging – ie corn-starch bags which many councils provide free of charge.
- NAPPIES! They are not organic matter, even though they are filled with it.
- Plastic and reusable bags. Even bags with leaves printed on them are still plastic!
- Bottles and cans
- Bricks and concrete
- Plastic plant pots
- Non-organic fabric
- The FOGO is sorted by hand, removing any contaminants. Contamination from Penrith FOGO is low, between 1.4-2.6%, a result of their long-term education programs.
- Material is shredded, rowed-out, turned and moistened. “We aim for about 50% moisture in the pile from the outset, so we don’t have to re-wet. Over time that drops to around 30%.
- They aerate once a week, putting oxygen into the pile to fire up the organisms doing the decomposing. The organisms also produce the heat that that kills of any contained pathogens or living materials, like weed seeds, “reaching around 70 degrees is fairly standard”.
- After between 20-30 weeks, the material is sieved and tested. “All our products are certified under Australian standards, like those applied to potting mixes. Then they can be used for anything”.
- They are then combined with other materials to create soil conditioners and mixes, heading back out onto farms or into the general garden market – your place!