The Ontario government is proposing to loosen the rules of its blue box program, offering more leeway to waste producers to hit their recycling targets, scrapping expansion plans and allowing more materials to be burned instead — moves critics say would represent a “significant step backwards.”
The proposed changes, posted quietly to the Environmental Registry of Ontario this week, would give waste producers until 2031 to hit their recovery targets for recyclable materials such as paper, rigid plastic, glass, metal and beverage containers, instead of facing those stricter targets as of 2026, in six months.
The draft changes are the latest twist in a plan, finalized in 2021, to transition to what’s called “extended producer responsibility” — essentially, handing responsibility for recycling from municipalities to the makers of packaging that fills the bins.
A statement to the Star from Alexandru Cioban, a spokesperson for Environment Minister Todd McCarthy, said the proposal was meant to address “unanticipated cost increases” for blue box collection and recycling services, to ensure a sustainable system that “maintains current services.” Consultations on the proposed rule changes are set to last for 30 days, until July 4.
In written materials, the government specified that its proposed extension to 2031 was meant to allow producers “more time to plan” and make investments into technology and infrastructure to improve their processing and recycling.
While companies were facing down another requirement, effective Jan. 1, to collect recyclables from more multi-residential buildings as well as certain schools, long-term care and retirement homes, the province is now proposing to scrap it — citing cost concerns and allowing producers to “focus on current blue box services.” Also on the chopping block are plans to operate blue boxes in more public spaces and expand recycling of beverage containers from residential areas to more industrial, commercial and institutional settings.
Under Queen’s Park’s latest proposal, companies would additionally be allowed to count recyclable materials they incinerated or used as fuel towards their recycling targets, up to a maximum of 15 per cent of their target quotas — suggesting the current rules “fail to recognize” the role of what’s officially known as “energy recovery” as a way to divert materials from landfills.
The proposed rejig came as a shock to Duncan Bury, a consultant who spent his career working on municipal and federal waste management policy and now advocates for waste reduction in his home city of Ottawa.
“This is a significant step backwards,” Bury said of the proposal, describing the changes as a weakening of the rules, seemingly at the behest of companies that create such products. “Just think of any package or product that’s on the shelf at Canadian Tire or a Loblaws or a Walmart, for example. They’re all covered by this.”
While the province wrote in its materials that “unexpected cost increases” for blue box collection and recycling services meant affordability concerns for “both businesses and consumers,” Bury suggested the cost to consumers would be modest — “fractions of a cent” built into, for example, the cost of a can of beans. He’s concerned especially with the proposal to allow materials used as fuel or incinerated to be counted toward producers’ recycling targets.
“The environment will be worse off if we burn this stuff,” Bury said.
Elena Mantagaris, senior adviser at the Association of Plastic Recyclers, is less adverse to allowing more waste incineration, seeing it as having a place in “the waste hierarchy,” though she cautioned it wouldn’t be at the top of her list. Mantagaris offered the example of medical product, which she said raise health and safety concerns if recycled. She believes there should be an open discussion about how much of producers’ targets can come from incineration, though, and isn’t certain there’s enough research to suggest 15 per cent.
“I understand there are significant costs in scaling up a robust recycling system in Ontario, and producers are now being asked to step up to the plate to do so,” Mantagaris said, backing the idea of making changes in a manageable and phased way. But she was disappointed to see the proposal to bump accountability five years down the road, suggesting that many smaller and medium-sized producers had already made investments to meet those goals.
With several expansion plans also nixed, she noted it was unclear if, or when, they’d be revived in the future. “There’s an absence of clarity here.”
Ashley Wallis, associate director with the advocacy organization Environmental Defense, meanwhile panned the provincial proposal as a “pretty massive step backwards” and a “huge rollback,” noting talks about placing responsibility for recycling with waste producers had been underway for more than a decade.
Circular Materials, a not-for-profit producer responsibility organization whose board of directors includes representatives from major companies such as Loblaw, Clorox, Costco, Pepsico and McDonald’s, said in a statement their team was still in the early stages of reviewing the government’s latest proposals, and that it intended to file formal submissions during the consultation process.
“Our focus is and continues to be on delivering an (extended producer responsibility) program in Ontario that improves recycling and increases performance and environmental outcomes,” CEO Allen Langdon wrote, while stressing a commitment to supporting companies in meeting their obligations and finding ways to create an “effective and efficient recycling program.”
At the Circular Innovation Council — previously the Recycling Council of Ontario — executive director Jo-Anne St. Godard said she wasn’t shocked by the proposals, and knew there were concerns about rising costs. But she was disappointed by the pitch, suggesting it put a damper on potential jobs and opportunities within the new recycling system.
“This is not just about keeping materials out of landfill,” St. Godard said on Thursday. “This is generating a best-in-class recycling industry, and an economy that deals with its own materials, right here in Ontario.”
