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YIMBY needs your help!

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#CommunityCompostingAtRisk #YesInMyBackyard #Resilience #LocalSolutions #Community

YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) is highly successful community-run backyard composting project based in Castlemaine, Victoria. Recently featured on Gardening Australia, they keep organic resources local while building strong community connections. However their work is at risk of erasure if the local council brings in Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO) services across the Shire.

Over the last 5 years YIMBY Compost has been working with Mt Alexander Shire Council to develop a community driven response to getting organics out of landfill. This has involved sharing local knowledge and growing concerns about unintended outcomes experienced by other council areas which have implemented a FOGO bin system.

YIMBY are asking the council for a delay in rolling out FOGO services to ensure it is the right response for the community. A delay would allow time for adequate data collection on the Shire’s current use of food scraps and garden organics and the true demand for additional collection services. A delay would also allow YIMBY Compost to reach its full potential, as well as developing other local solutions, such as on-farm composting.

Unfortunately the Mount Alexander Shire Council CEO told YIMBY last month that they are not prepared to delay and will be advising Councillors to sign contracts for a FOGO system to be rolled out by July 2027. As a result YIMBY are now taking their concerns to the broader community and asking for help to delay the rollout of a FOGO system until 2030 by signing their petition.

Time is critical, and how we do this matters. YIMBY is asking people to support their locally based, neighbourhood composting system which keeps resources local where they are needed and to avoid another big truck crawling through the streets to take them away. Sign their petition here

YIMBY’s impact:

YIMBY purposes:

  • To reduce methane emissions by diverting organics from landfill and using localised transport
  • To close the loop on (re)cycling food organics in our local community and to grow the availability of good soil, with compost.
  • To build community resilience by connecting people in neighbourhoods and building skills

YIMBY values community-led solutions to global problems and trust that, with support, communities are more adaptive and responsive when we work together.

Comments

4 responses to “YIMBY needs your help!”

  1. Jeff McClintock Avatar
    Jeff McClintock

    Hi all,

    I am familiar with YIMBY, our own very successful composting setup at University of Tasmania, and the successful multi-LGA FOGO system being implemented in northern Tasmania.

    My question is why are we looking at this as an either/or scenario?

    In my experience, home/community composting is best suited to composting food scraps and relatively small quantities of organic matter, whereas FOGO caters for very large quantities of mostly garden waste (far more than can be processed in home or community composting situations). At least in our case in Northern Tasmania, FOGO is turned into very good quality compost (using windrow hot composting with air pumped up through the heap to keep it aerobic), and participation rates are very high (70-80% in my village).

    Given the complementary nature of the two systems, why not do both and maximise the amount of methane-producing organic matter being kept out of landfill?

    Jeff

    Reply
  2. Peg Davies Avatar
    Peg Davies

    Yes unfortunately there seems to be drop in interest in back yard composting whenever FOGO is introduced. My message a a Waste Educator is always as you have proposed keeping it local using our own stuff etc etc but this is an Australia wide policy and many people are interested in convenience only or feel it is too difficult to drop off somewhere.
    I maintain we promote when we can and offer easy ways for people to do the in house or neighbourhood composting where possible.
    Great work for your effort in Vic

    Reply
  3. Tim Walsh Avatar
    Tim Walsh

    Yes we have had fortnightly FOGO in much of Adelaide for over 20 years. The retrieval rate has flatlined at 50% recovery of organics. Opt in weekly trials have increased this to 70% in some councils but that’s with folk who want to participate. The big bin is a ‘set and forget’ strategy outsourcing our waste to an unseen system. It seems to result in a lot of contaminants as public engagement withdraws once the large contracts are signed.
    Community composting offers another path and there are opportunity costs in investing in a city wide ‘one size fits all’ solution.
    Not all cities and towns are the same and local community initiatives should be valued. There is a premium in closing the nutrient loop as close to source as possible. Less waste of fuel, richer local soils, more gardens, trees, and greater fulfilment by residents, as well as the myriad of critters with which we should share this planet.
    These are important issues and communities need to be engaged with whatever strategies are adopted.
    See http://www.localcouncils.sa.gov.au/

    Reply
  4. 36,824.43 $$ transfer. Continue graph.org/Withdrawal-process-04-14?hs=94fcb97a1963ef7ad1cf435fe68565d3& Avatar
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