Purpose
This 8-year $27 million program is aimed at diverting food and garden waste from landfill and redirecting it to organics processing facilities. It complements the Organics Infrastructure – Organics Processing grant program, which funds the establishment of processing facilities.
In March 2020, an additional $12.5 million was announced for the Household Stream to support councils impacted by the Environment Protection Authority's (EPA) decision to no longer allow land application of Mixed Waste Organics Outputs. A total of $16 million was available in this round, $3.5 million of which was available to councils that were not affected by the EPA's Mixed Waste Organics Outputs decision.
The Organics Collections program funds
- the introduction or expansion of green-lid bin services
- kitchen caddies
- education programs to support and encourage behaviour change
- trials of organics collection services in multi-unit dwellings (MUDS).
Collection services funded under this program must:
- collect waste that is currently going to landfill
- transport the waste to a licensed treatment facility (e.g. for conversion to compost or conversion to energy).
This program is being delivered by the NSW Environmental Trust in partnership with the NSW Environment Protection Authority. Additional information can be found on the EPA website.
Before 2017, this program was called the Local Government Organics Collection Systems (LGOCS) grants program.
Funding available
Business stream
Grants of between $10,000 and $500,000 were available to cover up to 50% of costs relating to organics collection services to businesses.
Household stream
Grants up to $1.3 million were available for the introduction of new or expanded kerbside organics collection services to households (including multi-unit dwellings). Trial collection services in multi-unit dwellings were eligible provided the trial ran for a minimum of 8 months.
Who can apply?
The following organisations were eligible to apply to both streams:
- individual NSW councils (as defined in the Local Government Act 1993)
- regional waste groups, regional organisations of councils and joint organisations of councils (these groups can apply for grants or coordinate projects on behalf of one or more of their member councils).
2020 Household stream only
- councils impacted by the Mixed Waste Organics Outputs (MWOO) decision were eligible to apply for the $12.5 million available through the Alternative Waste Treatment (AWT) Transition Package.
- non-affected councils were eligible to apply for the remaining $3.5 million.
Business stream only
The following organisations were also eligible to apply to the Business stream:
- waste and recycling collection providers
- large businesses with multiple sites in a small geographic area, where each site generates large quantities of food waste
- property owners and managers who control the waste and resource recovery services to commercial or mixed residential and commercial premises.
Joint applications
Joint applications were welcomed. Some examples include:
- councils working with their waste-service provider to promote and coordinate commercial waste collections as part of existing household collections
- councils working together on regional solutions
- large waste generators and commercial property owners working with waste-service providers to establish new long-term organics separation and collection systems
- waste-service providers working with Bin Trim assessors or businesses to implement suggested actions as per their Bin Trim action plan.
When can applications be made?
This program is now closed.