Every FOGO bin in Australia is counted the moment it's emptied. Tonnes collected, tonnes diverted from landfill, percentage diverted. Those numbers drive funding, targets and council report cards. What nobody counts is where the product ends up.
That matters, because the case for FOGO rests on a promise: that food and garden waste goes back to the land and helps grow more food. It's the circular economy in its simplest form. But diversion only tells us what didn't go to landfill. It doesn't tell us whether anything came full circle.
The most recent national picture of where recycled organics are sold is AORA's industry capacity assessment, using 2019-20 data. More than half of sales (52.5%) went to urban amenity: landscaping, parks, gardens and soil blends. About a quarter (26.2%) went to "intensive agriculture", a category that includes turf and nursery production as well as food crops. Broadacre farming and grazing weren't reported as a category at all.
Those figures are six years old, and there's been no comparable survey since. That gap is itself the point. The industry can't currently show how much urban-derived compost goes back into food production, because nobody is asked to measure it.
There's an irony here. Biosolids, the recycled organic stream the public trusts least, are the one that most reliably goes back to farmland: around nine in ten tonnes of Australian biosolids are beneficially reused, much of it to fibre and grazing rather than food crops. Clean garden and food organics, the stream councils promote as closing the loop, mostly end up in gardens and landscapes.
None of that is a criticism of urban use. Compost in a new estate replaces topsoil that was stripped away, and that's a real benefit. It's a loop of its own, too: the lawns and gardens it feeds send their clippings and prunings back through the green bin, and the same goes for compost that ends up in potting mix. But it's a garden loop, not the food loop, and we shouldn't let people assume it is.
Diversion targets were the right starting point. Keeping organics out of landfill cuts methane and extends landfill life. The national target to halve organic waste to landfill by 2030 is still a good one.
But diversion measures avoided harm. It doesn't measure benefit. A tonne of compost that sits unsold in a stockpile counts the same as a tonne that rebuilds a paddock.
Policy hasn't joined the two up. The National Soil Strategy says plainly that "organic waste recycling is an exemplar of a circular economy". The National Waste Policy counts tonnes kept out of landfill. Neither measures whether those tonnes reach soil.
Queensland came closest. Its 2022 Organics Action Plan promised a knowledge hub by March 2023 that would map organic waste flows across the state and quantify the benefits of using compost on land. In August 2025 the Queensland Audit Office found the department couldn't tell whether its organics strategy was working, because it lacked reliable data, and recommended it start collecting it. The department agreed. That's the opening.
I'd like to see one more number reported alongside diversion: tonnes returned to productive land. That means FOGO-derived product applied to agricultural, horticultural and rehabilitation land where it improves soil function and food or fibre production.
It's simple to collect. Processors already know who buys their product. A short reporting field, by end market, would do it. Councils could adopt it voluntarily. Governments funding FOGO could require it.
It would do three things:
Three things keep compost off farms, and none of them is the farmer's fault.
Each of these is solvable. None will be solved while the only number anyone reports is tonnes diverted.
FOGO is sold to residents as food waste going back to the land. For much of it, that isn't yet true. Measuring tonnes returned to productive land wouldn't fix that on its own, but it would show us where we stand, and reward the people working to close the gap.
That's the point I've made in Radicle Compost's submission to AORA's draft FOGO position paper.
If you found this useful, or it raised questions about your own council's arrangements, I'd be glad to hear from you. A conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. And if your council is setting FOGO targets or reporting requirements in the next year, this is the time to add the measure.
Email support@radiclecompost.com.au, or send me a message on LinkedIn.
Sources: AORA, Australian Organics Recycling Industry Capacity Assessment 2020-21 (2019-20 data); National Soil Strategy (2021); National Waste Policy Action Plan 2019, Target 6; Queensland Organics Strategy 2022-2032 and Action Plan, action R2; Queensland Audit Office, Reducing organic household waste sent to landfill (Report 1: 2025-26, August 2025), Recommendation 5; Australian & New Zealand Biosolids Partnership, biosolids production and use survey.
Martin Tower is the founder of Radicle Compost, an independent, technology-agnostic organics recycling advisory. He has 25 years' experience in composting and organics processing across Eastern Australia.
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