Bulla Organics Facility, VIC

• Branches, twigs & leaves
• Lawn clippings & weeds
• Fruit & vegetable scraps
• Meat & bones
• Citrus, onions & garlic
• Seafood
• Dairy products & egg shells
• Bread, pasta & rice
• Coffee grounds & loose leaf tea
• Newspaper sheets (as wrapping / lining for Food only)
• Paper towels   (as wrapping / lining for Food only)
• Paper caddy liners  (as wrapping / lining for Food only)

Rough rule of thumb for what can go into a FOGO bin is anything that grows in your garden or you can eat. 

• Plastic Bags / Packaging of any variety (including certified compostable bags)
• Cigarette Butts
• Nappies / Baby wipes
• Paper (office paper / tissues) (Large volume paper towel / newspaper)
• Chemicals / Batteries
• Coffee Pods
• Tea Bags
• Coffee Cups (all kinds)
• Kitty Litter  (all kinds) 
• Animal Droppings
• Ash / Tree Stumps
• Glass / Metal
• Cateringware plastic / wood - bamboo

A great resource is the Household Waste and Recycling Service standard 2024 from Recycling Victoria for a more in depth listing.

Standard contents list for FOGO service

Once the organic material is delivered, it is mechanically agitated and sorted in the early stages to remove contaminants, it is then visually assessed and manually picked by our dedicated picking team  to remove unwanted items like plastics and garden tools.  

Screened material is shredded and placed in large vats where air is pumped through to encourage microbial bugs to break down the organics. The introduced air stimulates the bugs, encouraging them to break down the material. Their activity generates heat during this process. After an average of 5-7 days we can monitor and guarantee that we have pasteurised the material to meet Australian Standard 4454. This process is referred to as in vessel composting which uses aeration. During this process the organics are turned into nutrient rich compost which can be used by farmers and in other land use.

Yes, the high-heat pasteurisation process eliminates pathogens and destroys weed seeds and other contaminants. The finished soil conditioner meets strict regulatory standards for safely amending agricultural soils used for growing food crops.

What would usually take two months in a wind row, requiring management and turning we achieve in 5-7 days using the in-vessel system. We ensure that we achieve 76 hours of temperatures over 55 degrees celsius at a minimum. The Australian Standard is 72 hours to consider the product pasteurised. 

The site does not accept any type of plastic or compostable bags due to the potential safety and contamination risks they pose. Yes, this includes compostable bags as during the screening process plastic and compostable bags cannot be distinguished apart. They all have to be assumed to be plastic due to the contamination risk. The screened and separated items are disposed of appropriately. From a safety point of view, we can not see within the bags so they are also removed to reduce our risks to staff or the soil conditioner product. 

The work overseas is still ongoing though apart from the soil & chemical analysis etc there are a couple of other stand out issues with using compostable bags which I hope may address any questions you may receive:

• Some people place contamination inside the bag. In theory, if we would let a compostable bag go through our sorting process and if there is a plastic wrapper, glass bottle, (or worse) piece of asbestos or a syringe in that bag it would go through to our end product instead of being identified during the decontamination process.  Manually breaking these bags open presents an additional Safety risk to workers exposing them to the aforementioned hazards. 
• There is no standard as to what a compostable bag must look like, making them difficult to identify during our sorting process. Our sorters do roughly 1 pick per second. This is a very short amount of time to identify whether a bag is certified compostable or not.
• If a knot is tied in the bag, the knot will take an exceedingly long time to break down (we have seen these take in excess of a year). Remnants of compostable bags are counted towards the maximum 0.05% contamination in our end product which is governed by Victorian EPA.

Yes. Shells soften and crumble when agitated during the composting process. They also add valuable calcium to the compost.

Generally no. As a lot of timber used in construction has been treated in some way (ie. Treated Pine) this introduces chemical contamination to our compost. There is no way for us to tell if the dust/shavings are treated or not as they aren’t identifiable.

Yes. Coffee husks and grounds can go in the green waste bin for composting. 

No. Faeces cannot be placed into the green waste bin.

The main issue with tea bags is the small tag that hangs off the side. This is quite often a coated material or a thick cardboard that doesn't break down in the vessel process. This then leaves us with colourful little labels that stand out in our compost. The small staple that attaches the string is so small that it also goes through into our end product. As with compostable bags, as there is no clear way to identify a compostable tea bag, these are not accepted.

No we don’t. Paper can be of varying grades and breaks down at varying speeds, or it may be coated. The best place for paper is your recycling bin.

When it comes to paper towel and newspaper we allow 1 or 2 sheets that has been used to wrap/transport food. The one to avoid is people using bulk amounts of paper towel and placing it in the bin.

How much of this would be placed in the bin? Liquids should generally not be placed into any bin so this should be avoided. Oils work fine in the composting process (and we do receive it from alternative sources at our facilities) though this would be more about how the material is placed in the bin.

See above for what is allowed on the paper front. Paper is better suited in the recycling stream. There are varying grades of paper all of which break down at varying rates so at this stage they aren't accepted. Some paper bags as caddy liners are fine so long as they aren’t waxed/coated/treated in any way.

The main concern with vacuum dust is potential small contamination that is also vacuumed up.

Yes only if its not dyed or synthetic hair as it can contain a lot of chemicals that can affect our organic certification. 

Small amounts on the roots of plants/weeds causes no issues. Larger amounts, no. Soil will not break down any further and is very dense (preventing airflow through our composting vessels). The best place for soil is back in the garden!

We've never seen an animal leave much food behind, although this is fine in a FOGO bin.