Only 11 of Queensland's 77 councils currently offer kerbside food and garden organics (FOGO) bins. Organic waste still makes up half of everything Queenslanders send to landfill each year, and the infrastructure to fix that is a long way from finished.
The numbers behind Queensland's compost gap
FOGO bins are concentrated almost entirely in the state's southeast, leaving most councils without a kerbside option for food scraps. The Gold Coast alone generates around 300,000 tonnes of residual waste a year for a population of 680,000. Queensland's waste strategy is targeting a 65 per cent cut to residual waste by 2035, with the southeast aiming for 70 per cent over the next decade.
Home composting doesn't wait for council trucks
Sustainable-living advocate Benjamin Head has been composting at home for two decades and puts it simply: "every drop makes an ocean." ARRC CEO Grant Gabriel makes the same point from the industry side: "there's an opportunity for everyone to really bring that circularity into their home." A compost bin, a worm farm or a benchtop system will process food scraps whether or not the truck ever turns up.
What still needs to change
Circular-economy expert Bel Chellingworth was blunter about the policy gap: "we certainly need to see some consistent messaging and assistance from the federal government down." Australia's packaging and recycling policy has the same consistency problem, from a shelved federal promise on recycled content to supermarkets only moving under pressure from their own investors.
Read the full story from ABC News, 21 September 2026.
Related reading: The Government Promised Mandatory Recycled Packaging. It Just Quietly Dropped It and Coles Investors Are the Ones Forcing a Plastic Packaging Reckoning.
Viva La Body's packaging has been designed to break down in a home compost bin since 2019, so at least one corner of the bathroom cabinet is already sorted :)