A Southeast Queensland council will lead a study into the feasibility of converting food and garden waste into energy.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) last week announced a $300,000 grant to Logan City Council, in partnership with Queensland University, to investigate how food and garden waste can be converted to renewable energy.

The $650,000 feasibility study will look at diverting household FOGO waste to produce biomethane gas, biochar and a pelletised fertiliser known as prill at Council’s award-winning Loganholme Wastewater Treatement Plant.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller says the study is an opportunity to divert energy resources from landfill.

“Household food and organics waste can be a valuable source of bioenergy, too much of which is currently going to waste,” he said in a statement.

“Logan City Council’s feasibility study will look at how this can be captured, whilst reducing harmful emissions from household waste.”

Plans for bioenergy recovery ecosystem

The Logan City’s Loganholme Wastewater Treatement Plant, Australia’s first biosolids gasification facility, opened in April 2022 and is currently converting sewage biosolids into energy and biochar – which can be used as fertiliser.

ARENA says the biochar from this can be combined with liquid from FOGO waste to produce fertiliser prill.

Logan Water, a wholly owned subsidiary of Logan City which designed and delivered the Loganholme operation, hopes to see it become an integrated facility supporting an onsite bioenergy recovery ecosystem.

Logan Mayor Darren Power says the FOGO study represents an exciting milestone in Council’s sustainability journey.

“Logan City Council is already leading the way in cost-effective, sustainable waste disposal, having pioneered the gasification of biosolids in Australia,” he said.

“With our proven technology already in place, the repurposing of FOGO waste is the next logical step.”

Planning for FOGO collection

Logan City Council introduced a successful ‘opt-in’ green waste collection service (for garden waste only) in mid-2021 and 20,000 households are now participating.

More than a third of Logan City’s household waste can be classified as FOGO, ARENA says.

Results from the FOGO feasibility study will be available in 2024 and will be used to help the Council investigate and plan for the introduction of a broader FOGO waste collection service in coming years.

Longer term, the results could support Council’s application to the Queensland Government’s recently announced GROW FOGO program which aims to help local governments fund the rollout of ‘organics’ bins and kitchen food waste caddies across South East Queensland.

Logan City Council’s FOGO feasibility study is the first of its kind funded under ARENA’s Industrial Energy Transformation Studies program (IETS), which supports innovative energy projects nationwide, Mr Miller said.

“Industry faces a pressing emissions reduction challenge that this program hopes to assist with,” he said.