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Canberra food waste collection program takes 'back seat' to recycling facility (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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An ACT government pilot collecting food and garden organic waste to be recycled into compost has been extended to include more than 1,100 units in Belconnen and Tuggeranong.

The Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) program was expected to be rolled out city-wide in 2026, but construction of an appropriate processing facility has taken a back seat to replacing the ACT's recycling centre.

The government says despite delays it remains committed to delivering the FOGO collection service to all of Canberra.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A fire took out the recycling centre?! Woah! Thats crazy because i assume the building had some fire precautions in place, maybe not sprinklers, but surely hoses, fire extinguishers. But it still got out of control.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yep, they ended up deciding it was sparked by various batteries that had ended up in one of the compactors. Whatever they had for fire protection mustn't have been enough to stop it once the fire was noticed - I assume the source was within a big pile of recycling so would have required a serious amount of water to put out. It ended up being a rather large fire (one of the local accident chasers has some decent photos) and took out the recycling capability for the whole area. The rubbish piles within ended up smouldering away for a few days after the main fire was put out.

For over a year and a half now I believe most if not all the ACTs recycling has had to be sent to Sydney due to this fire, so I can understand the new centre getting priority when it comes to the waste management budget.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Ah yes batteries. Makes sense.