THE City of Swan has voted 9-2 to continue the staged rollout of its three-bin system, offering property owners a range of bin size options to choose from FOGO, general waste and recycling.

City of Swan pauses FOGO rollout reported that councillors voted 13-2 on April 9 to seek a review of the FOGO service and consider GO as an alternative.

Echo News also reported it understood the service had already been paused before the councillors made the decision.

At the August 13 ordinary council meeting the motion passed by the councillors included reimbursing properties from stages 1-3 which had paid to upsize their general waste bin.

The motion councillors agreed on also included continuing to pause the rollout in rural areas and for a report to go back to the council following further consultation and advising the relevant funding bodies – the Waste Authority Western Australia and the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council (EMRC) – of the decision.

The motion included that a report on the detailed costs of the 2024-25  three-bin waste service – standard versus detailed costs of the two-bin waste-recycling service charge that many residents continue to receive be presented to the October ordinary council meeting.

The motion also required that the city engage with the waste authority to seek retention of the better bin grant for the flexibility contained within the motion and if that was not successful that the matter be returned to the council for advice and decision.

The officer’s report said the city had received about $8.78 million in funding to transition to a FOGO service.

This funding came from three sources – $5.8m from the EMRC and $2.98m from two grants from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulations.

“Under the terms of the respective deed and grant agreements, the city is required to repay the funding if it does not implement a FOGO service,’’ the officer’s report said.