FOGO - City of Rockingham

 
 

Simplifying a major community waste education rollout

The City of Rockingham introduced FOGO as part of its transition to a three-bin waste collection system, helping residents separate food organics and garden organics from general waste.

For a change affecting more than 50,000 households, clear communication was essential. Residents needed to understand what was changing, why it mattered, what went in each bin, and how the new system would work in everyday life. The WA Government described Rockingham’s rollout as applying to more than 50,000 households, with FOGO designed to improve recycling and recovery rates.

Overland Media worked with the City of Rockingham to create campaign content that made the FOGO rollout feel simple, practical and easy to understand for everyday households.

The project included a hero explainer video, campaign photography, animation, education assets and school-focused content designed to support the City’s resident communication across website, paid advertising, newsletters, mail drops and other community-facing channels.

The goal was clear: reduce confusion, improve understanding and help residents feel more confident using the new system.

The Business Problem

Introducing FOGO was not just a bin change. It was a behaviour-change campaign.

The City of Rockingham needed to help thousands of residents understand a new waste system and adjust their household habits. This meant communicating practical information in a way that was simple, accessible and repeatable.

The challenge was to reduce confusion around:

  • What FOGO means

  • Which items go in each bin

  • How food scraps and garden organics should be separated

  • Why the red, yellow and green bins are collected differently

  • How residents could reduce contamination

  • How the new system supports waste reduction and environmental outcomes

The City’s own FOGO information explains that almost 50% of what goes into the red bin is organic waste such as food scraps and garden clippings, with the new standard service starting on 30 June 2025 to improve recycling and recovery rates.

The real communication problem was not awareness alone. It was understanding.

If residents were confused, the rollout risked contamination, frustration and poor adoption. The content needed to make the system feel achievable for normal households.

The Strategic Approach

The strategy was to make FOGO feel simple, practical and relevant to everyday life.

Rather than relying on technical waste language, the content needed to show residents what the change looked like at home, at school and in the community.

The messaging had to balance three things:

Clarity
Help residents quickly understand what goes where and how the system works.

Practicality
Show that FOGO can fit into normal household routines without feeling overwhelming.

Purpose
Connect the behaviour change to a bigger outcome: reducing waste, improving recovery and taking shared responsibility for the community’s environmental impact.

The content was designed to support multiple touchpoints across the rollout, from initial awareness through to ongoing education. That meant creating assets that could work across video, photography, animation, website content, paid ads, newsletters, mail drops and school education.

This was not simply a council explainer video. It was resident-facing communication designed to support behaviour change at scale.

The Execution

Overland Media produced a suite of campaign assets to help the City of Rockingham explain the FOGO rollout clearly across multiple channels.

The work included:

  • Hero explainer video

  • Campaign photography

  • Animation and motion graphics

  • Bin education content

  • Website assets

  • Paid advertising assets

  • Newsletter and mail drop content support

  • School-focused education content

  • Community-facing campaign imagery

The hero explainer video helped simplify the key message: what FOGO is, how the system works and why residents were being asked to change their waste habits.

Photography and campaign imagery gave the City practical visual assets to use across community communications, while animation helped explain information that could otherwise feel dry, repetitive or confusing.

School content also helped extend the message beyond households, giving the campaign a broader education angle and helping younger residents understand their role in reducing waste.

The assets were created for flexible use across the City’s website, paid ads, newsletters, mail drops and resident education channels.

The Outcome & ROI

The content helped the City of Rockingham simplify a major community rollout and communicate the FOGO system clearly across multiple channels.

By turning a potentially confusing waste change into clear, visual, resident-friendly messaging, the campaign supported community understanding and gave the City a practical suite of reusable education assets.

The outcomes included:

  • Clearer resident communication around the new bin system

  • Reduced confusion about what goes in each bin

  • Stronger education around contamination reduction

  • Practical campaign assets for website, paid ads, newsletters and mail drops

  • Visual content that made FOGO feel easier for everyday households

  • School-focused content to support broader community education

  • Stronger alignment between environmental messaging and practical household behaviour

The result was a campaign built around clarity and behaviour change.

Overland Media helped the City of Rockingham communicate a major waste transition in a way that was simple, visual and easy for residents to understand — supporting the rollout across multiple public-facing channels.