EMRC FOGO Project

EMRC FOGO Project is a waste diversion project located at the Red Hill Waste Management Facility, approximately 25km northeast of Perth in Western Australia. It was registered in August 2021 by the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council (EMRC). Because it is an aggregated municipal waste project, a specific project area size is not defined. The broader Perth Hills region's land use primarily consists of conservation, forestry, agriculture (grazing and viticulture), and municipal infrastructure. The area experiences a Mediterranean climate with moderate winter-dominant rainfall, and local soils are typically characterised by lateritic gravels, clays, and loams.

Source Separated Organic Waste projects operate by separating eligible organic material at the point of generation to divert it from landfill. Under the 2016 Methodology Determination, standard requirements dictate that the waste must be processed using eligible alternative treatments. In this project, treatments include enclosed composting and anaerobic digestion. Where anaerobic digestion is used, any biogas produced must be transferred to a combustion device for destruction. Projects earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) based on the avoided methane emissions that would have otherwise occurred as the organic matter decayed in a traditional landfill.

The EMRC project encompasses aggregated waste diversion, new waste diversion, expansion waste diversion, and charity diversion activities. To scale these efforts, EMRC recently received a $2 million contribution from the State and Federal Government's Food Waste for Healthy Soil Fund to construct a new, vital commercial-scale Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) processing plant at the Red Hill site. Processed FOGO materials are managed to meet strict Australian Standards for composts and soil conditioners, which return organic matter to Western Australia's carbon-deficient soils and reduce reliance on synthetic fertilisers. By keeping these materials out of landfill, the scheme provides an estimated greenhouse gas saving equivalent to 0.22 tonnes of CO2-e per household each year.