For the first time in over four decades, Toronto’s blue bin recycling program is no longer run by the city but by a new, private operator.
Circular Materials, a non-profit founded to handle recycling on behalf of major brands like McDonald’s, Cosco and Loblaws, took over recycling systems in Ontario municipalities, including Toronto, on Jan. 1, concluding a three-year provincial transition marked by industry complaints and recycling standards being watered down.
A week into 2026, the launch has been bumpy, with missed pick-ups and confusing information causing headaches for residents.
While you can no longer call the city of Toronto at 311 to fix your blue bin problems, here’s a guide on who to contact instead and how the new recycling service provider came into place.
How does the new system differ from the old one?
Toronto households can recycle the same materials as before, plus some new items — including black plastic containers, hot and cold beverage cups, frozen juice containers, ice cream tubs, and deodorant and toothpaste tubes.
Residents can continue to use their current blue bins, and collection days remain the same, except in some neighbourhoods of the old city of Toronto, east and west of Yonge Street, where alternating garbage and recycling weeks will change beginning in early January. Affected residents should have received a notice or can consult the city’s 2026 collection schedule.
One thing residents may miss is the city’s 311 line, which offered around-the-clock support for missed pickups or damaged or missing bins. 311 will no longer handle recycling questions; all calls should be directed to the new Circular Materials hotline, 1-888-921-2686, which operates only on weekdays.
The non-profit said it will respond to messages left outside of business hours the next day and handle urgent calls immediately.
Why is the recycling system being privatized?
In the previous system, more than 240 Ontario municipalities ran their own separate blue box programs, sharing costs equally with so-called “stewards” — the manufacturers, brand holders, and franchisors responsible for producing household glass, plastic, metal and printed paper products.
Doug Ford’s government pushed for a transition to an extended producer responsibility regime in 2021 to incentivize companies to use more recyclable packaging, making the “stewards” fully responsible for the cost and administration of recycling.
Ford said the change would save municipalities millions while diverting more waste from landfills, thanks to an expanded list of recyclable materials.
However, the execution of the well-intentioned idea has been troublesome and criticized as needlessly bureaucratic. The environment ministry granted waste producers a two-year grace period to make “best efforts” to meet recycling targets before facing potential fines, and delayed plans to expand blue box recycling to apartments, condos, long-term-care, and retirement homes by five years.
Who is Circular Materials?
Retailers that produce blue bin materials do not directly manage recycling. Instead, they rely on producer responsibility organizations (PROs) to contract out recycling collection and processing on their behalf.
Circular Materials is one of four PROs operating in Ontario. It also serves as the overall administrator of recycling across the province.
But Ontario’s new recycling system, which allows multiple competing PROs to operate, has drawn criticism for creating duplication in administrative and other tasks. The Retail Council of Canada has said this approach could add millions to the cost of processing recyclables. By contrast, provinces such as British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta each operate with a single PRO for their recycling program.
What has happened with the system launch so far?
Over the first weekend of the new year, large swaths of Toronto saw no Green for Life Environmental (GFL) trucks arrive, despite residents being told to put out their bins for a special holiday collection last Friday or Saturday.
Circular Materials has blamed its contractor, GFL, for collection failures, while GFL customer service staff have suggested they were given late notice about special holiday pickups. Circular Materials disputes that claim.
Circular Materials’ app has also given incorrect collection days for addresses in Riverside, central Etobicoke and the Highway 401 and Leslie Street neighbourhood in North York. The situation has escalated to the point where Ford has warned he may intervene, while city councillors are demanding a 24-hour response line similar to the city’s former service.
“If it doesn’t work out, we’ll change it. That’s with any program we do — we tweak it,” Ford told reporters on Monday.
