Tire companies in Ontario that exceeded their 2023 recycling target are getting a windfall.
The Resource and Product Recovery Authority (RPRA), which oversees recycling, announced this week that it would distribute $7.44 million in settlement money from tire companies that failed to meet the 2023 recycling target to companies that surpassed the goal, essentially reimbursing them for the cost of the extra recycling.
The settlement is equivalent to what the underachieving tire companies have collected in eco-fees from customers, who typically pay $4.50 per tire to cover the cost of recycling, had they processed enough tires to meet the provincial target.
“This has no impact on consumers,” said Wilson Lee, RPRA’s chief of programs and public affairs, in an email. “All we’re doing is making sure tire producers who collected recycling fees are not profiting from them and making sure tire producers who exceeded their target are not being penalized for doing so.”
The payout comes after news that hundreds of thousands of tires, representing millions of dollars in lost eco-fees paid by consumers, were illegally stockpiled at sites in Sudbury and Ottawa last year after tire producers in Ontario met a target for 2025 that had been reduced from what it was in 2023 and 2024 by the province.
“These funds, which could have been used to help address Ontario’s current tire recycling issues, are instead going back to producers who have already recouped recycling fees when selling their tires into the retail market,” said Adam Moffatt, executive director of the Ontario Tire Dealers Association.
Moffatt said he is concerned that the “significant volume of tires not collected or recycled in 2025, carrying into 2026, will allow producers to hit their targets mid 2026…months earlier than we saw in 2025.”
In an email, Lee said the the distribution of the settlement funds “is completely unrelated to tire stockpiles that were discovered last year, long after the settlement was reached.
“Using these funds to clear tire stockpiles would only address the matter temporarily and not address the underlying issues,” said Lee. “We are supporting the ministry’s efforts to address the stockpiles and develop a solution to avoid future stockpiles.”
The stockpiles appeared after the provincial government amended recycling legislation in December 2024, lowering recycling targets for tire producers in the years 2025 to 2029, which meant there were more tires being collected for processing last year than were needed for tire companies to meet their targets.
The ministry said in an email that it is working with RPRA “to find ways to ensure that producers and PROs continue to operate their collection and recycling networks so that tires are picked up, sorted and processed in a timely fashion.”
Tire producers, which are companies that manufacture or sell tires, or sell products with tires, are required to manage 65 per cent of the tires by weight — either by recycling, reuse or retreading — that they sell on the Ontario market, down from an earlier 85 per cent collection and management rate.
When the Star reported on the change in recycling targets last January, the ministry said in an email that they didn’t expect the changes to have a “negative impact on environmental outcomes,” and that the amendments would “reduce the administrative burden,” on tire producers, who previously had to calculate both the rate of tires collected as well as a management rate.
The stockpiled tires are being cleaned out of the two sites by eTracks, the largest producer responsibility organization in Ontario, which manages recycling on behalf of 70 per cent of Ontario’s tire producers.
Both sites are registered collection sites with eTracks, but Melissa Carlaw, the company’s vice-president of communications and sustainability, said both sites are operated independently and do not have exclusive contracts with eTracks.
“Each site is actively being emptied of any tires related to eTracks and all eTracks tires will be gone by early February,” said Carlaw in an email.
Carlaw said the current disruption in the tire recycling industry was caused because there is no “co-ordination mechanism” in the tire regulation to prevent Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs) and producers to stop or slow collection once they reach their targets.
Carlaw said that during the disruption some “sites gathered more tires than normal and need to be emptied accordingly.”
“The disruption has impacted everyone in the tire recycling supply chain including producers, haulers, processors, collection sites and PROs,” said Carlaw. “It is a systemic issue, not a single company issue.”
eTracks is also the PRO that settled with RPRA on behalf of the 29 tire producers, which includes companies such as Bridgestone Canada Inc., Ford Motor Company of Canada Limited, General Motors of Canada Company and Goodyear Canada Inc., that failed to meet the 2023 targets.
“eTracks remains focused on positive environmental outcomes, responsible tire recycling for a clean and safe Ontario; and providing infield insight that supports producers and the government in finding solutions to the current challenges,” said Carlaw.
The RPRA announced the settlement for the missed 2023 targets in June last year but didn’t say how the funds would be dispersed until now.
