Amendments to the Blue Box Regulation

The Blue Box Regulation (Ontario Regulation 391/21) under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, 2016 makes producers, including brand holders, importers, and retailers, responsible for operating and collecting blue box programs for paper, packaging, and single use items at end-of-life.

Unanticipated cost increases for blue box collection and recycling services are creating real affordability concerns that could negatively impact both businesses and consumers in Ontario.

The ministry is proposing changes to help manage costs and ensure a stable and sustainable residential recycling system that focuses on maintaining current services.

Some of the proposed changes also address technical amendments to the regulation to improve implementation, clarify requirements, and ensure continuity of blue box services. These changes were brought to the ministry’s attention by stakeholders.

The actions being proposed are a first step as the government considers broader measures to help stabilize system costs while maintaining producer and resident confidence in the blue box system. The government welcomes feedback on areas for future consideration to make the system more responsive, accountable, and transparent to the businesses that pay for the blue box.

The proposed regulatory changes are summarized in this section. Further details are provided in the plain language description of proposed regulatory amendments that accompanies this notice.

Maintaining current services

The regulation sets additional requirements to current services starting in 2026, including setting recovery targets and expanding collection to more apartments, schools, and specified long-term care homes, and retirement homes.

Producers have identified these additional requirements as a significant source of costs at a time of higher-than-expected cost escalation for full transition of existing local blue box programs by 2025. These additional costs could threaten current services and the long-term sustainability of the program.

The following amendments aim to curb future cost growth of the blue box common collection system while ensuring that existing programs continue their smooth transition to producer responsibility.

• Delay Recovery Targets – Delay recovery targets for paper, metal, glass, rigid plastic, and beverage containers by 5 years to allow producers more time to plan and make investments for collection and recycling to meet their targets.
• Remove Planned Expansion for Multi-Residential Buildings, Schools, and Specified Long-Term Care Homes and Retirement Homes – Remove planned expansion to more multi-residential buildings, specified long-term care and retirement homes and schools to reduce future costs.

Focusing on residential materials

The Blue Box Regulation establishes requirements that would expand collection beyond residential locations.

Unlike all other blue box materials, regulated recovery targets for beverage containers apply to all containers supplied in Ontario – including those supplied to and/or disposed of in the industrial, commercial, and institutional (IC&I) sectors. This was intended to drive collection away from home through supplementary collection. However, this would result in significant cost to both businesses and residents which is not economically feasible at this time. Producers lack a cost-effective away from home collection network to meet regulated recovery targets in 2026.

The regulation also expands public space collection beyond what was provided by municipal programs. The ministry has learned that the regulation’s approach may require bins where collection may not be cost effective, and that wastes disposed in public spaces are often too contaminated to be recycled. This would impose significant costs on producers for limited gains in diversion.

The following amendments would help avoid new costs of expanding beyond the blue box and refocus implementation on ensuring an effective transition of existing residential materials.

• remove “Away from Home” Collection for Beverage Containers – Specify that producers are responsible only for containers supplied to residential consumers and disposed of in the residential blue box and allow producers to deduct the weight disposed in non-residential sources.
• remove planned expansion for public space collection – Remove provision for producers to expand collection in public spaces.

Making the right investments

The success of recycling requirements depends on having the right infrastructure, technology, and processing capacity to manage these materials after collection.

The ministry has heard that there are significant challenges to meeting the current recovery targets for flexible plastic. Stakeholders suggest that most of the flexible plastic collected by the blue box cannot be recovered due to the lack of technology and infrastructure to recycle the material, and significant contamination within the material category that contributes to the contamination of other materials that are collected in the blue box system.

Allowing for energy recovery to count toward recovery targets recognizes that energy recovery plays an important role in diverting waste from landfill. Energy recovery does not replace or displace recycling but could be used to divert non-recyclable materials from landfill.

The following amendments would help avoid and broaden the technologies available to keep material out of landfill.

• reduce and Delay Recovery Target for Flexible Plastic – reduce recovery target for flexible plastic to 5% (the current level of diversion) and delay this recovery target by 5 years.
• allow Energy Recovery to Count Towards Diversion – allow energy recovery to contribute to recovery targets, up to a limit of 15% for a single material category.

Technical changes

Stakeholders have notified us of technical and administrative changes to the regulation that would support effective implementation.

We are proposing the following amendments to the Blue Box Regulation to improve implementation, clarify requirements, and ensure continuity of blue box services.

• determine the best way to ensure diversion – Consider maintaining best efforts or requiring all collected materials to be sent to a registered processor.
• clarify the definition of a facility – Specify that a multi-residential building is an establishment with six or more residential units to be consistent with definitions in other regulations (e.g., O. Reg. 103/94).
• maintain Collection for Daycares and Other Uses in a School – Clarify that producers are responsible for collecting all blue box wastes generated by all users of a school building to ensure that there is no loss of service for any users.
• maintain Recycling for Residents in Unorganized Territories – Clarify that producer-run blue box depots must accept blue box wastes from residents of unorganized territories, where these residents also have access to a garbage depot in that municipality to maintain service.
• update Timelines for Providing Blue Box Services – Require producers and PROs to meet timelines as specified by the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA) in a registry procedure for specified activities, such as servicing newly built homes, which RPRA would consult on before finalizing.
• provide Flexibility on Printed Promotion and Education Materials – Require producers to provide promotion and education materials in print only where requested by a municipality or resident.
• target French Language Requirements – Require French language materials only in areas designated under the French Language Services Act or as requested by municipality or resident.

Concurrent proposal for legislation changes

Due to higher-than-expected costs, Ontario is proposing changes to the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act that would strengthen Ontario’s blue box program by improving transparency, cost disclosure, and collection of materials. The proposed changes would allow Ontario's producer responsibility framework to be more responsive to the needs of businesses and identify savings to help drive blue box costs down. Please see the related links section regarding this proposal notice.