Major changes are coming to Toronto’s recycling collection. What does this mean for residents?

​By Ivan Chen

A row of blue recycling bins. The city of Toronto will soon be adopting an EPR-based recycling collection system, marking a major change in its current waste management operations. (Credit: RJA1988/Pixabay)

Starting on January 1, 2026, the city of Toronto will no longer be responsible for collecting the recycling from residential properties, schools, long-term care facilities and retirement homes. In line with the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy, companies that produce recyclable packaging or products will be responsible for collecting and managing them. These are significant changes, so what will they mean for residents?

What is EPR?

EPR is a policy that shifts the costs and logistics of collecting and managing waste away from consumers and onto the producers of that waste. The goal of this policy is to increase the recycling of materials and keep more waste out of landfills. This is based on the belief that producers will be more inclined to be innovative and efficient in reducing packaging and overall waste if they are responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products.

In Ontario, the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, 2016, set the foundation for shifting recycling responsibility from municipalities to producers. The provincial government began consultations in August 2019 on how to develop regulations and implement EPR into municipal recycling services across the province. 

The province said there are over 240 municipal blue box programs with different recyclable items, and that recycling rates in the province have stalled for many years. The goal is to increase the rate of recycling and simplify it by making a standardized list of recyclable items. 

By June 2021, the provincial government announced it was finalizing plans to improve its existing recycling operations, including expanding services throughout the province, standardizing recycling items and accepting certain single-use items. Producers of recyclable products would be required to register with the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority, which enforces Ontario’s circular economy laws. Municipalities would see staggered implementation of EPR in their recycling collection between 2023 and 2025.

In early 2023, the city of Toronto announced it would partner with Circular Materials to begin its transition to EPR-based recycling collection on July 1, 2023. Circular Materials is a not-for-profit producer responsibility organization dedicated to helping producers follow the new regulations outlined by the provincial government. By January 1, 2026, Circular Materials will assume responsibility for recycling collection.

What does this mean for Torontonians?

Until the full transition on January 1, 2026, there won’t be many changes for residents. The city will continue to provide recycling collection services, and the collection schedules will remain the same. Beginning in May 2025, stickers with the contact information of Circular Materials will be placed on all blue bins from residential properties. A notice should have been sent by mail to residents living in certain city districts around two weeks before their bins were stickered. Once Circular Materials begins its collection duties, residents will need to contact them, not the city, for all inquiries and complaints. 

Unfortunately, residents won’t see financial benefits. Toronto homeowners have to pay a separate annual fee for solid waste collection. It ranges between $300 to nearly $600, depending on the size of the bin residents pick for their homes. According to CityNews, homeowners will not see a reduction in their solid waste management fees, as the fees will be allocated to other waste-related city services like street and parks bin collection, waste drop-off depots and landfill maintenance. 

Some may suggest that the price of goods and services could increase under EPR, as producers might pass down additional costs of the new services they have to provide onto consumers. However, a 2020 study from a U.S. firm, Resource Recycling Systems, compared the prices of a variety of commonly used packaged goods at grocery stores in different jurisdictions in Canada that have and have not incorporated EPR in their waste management. It found little difference in product pricing.

But looking at the bigger picture, there are still other benefits to an EPR-based recycling system. As mentioned earlier, EPR in Ontario will streamline recycling across the province and will hold producers responsible for recycling collection and management. This will encourage producers to minimize waste and other unnecessary features in their packaging and products, as well as find ways to make their goods more biodegradable or recyclable. This will ensure more waste is diverted away from landfills.

While they’re a necessary component of waste management, landfills are quite harmful to the environment. Landfills release greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide; usually require significant amounts of land, which can lead to the destruction of natural habitats; and can be a general irritant to humans and animals alike. 

Toronto currently operates the Green Lane Landfill, located about 200 km west of the city. On average, the city sends about 450,000 tonnes of waste there annually. In 2024, the city managed nearly 830,000 tonnes of waste. 

With the landfill expected to reach maximum capacity by 2035, the city is considering burning its waste, which can also be quite harmful to human health. A 2022 report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario suggested that upwards of 328,000 tonnes of waste could be diverted from landfills, and 1,783,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent could be reduced annually under EPR if it is effectively implemented province-wide. Reducing waste production at its source, which is what EPR seeks to do, is better than creating more landfills or burning waste.

Despite EPR’s promising benefits, its rollout has faced some barriers. After producers began raising concerns about rising costs associated with this new system, the province suggested in June 2025 that it could loosen some of the new rules. Producers might not have to collect waste from multi-residential buildings, certain long-term care facilities, retirement homes and schools. Some recycling targets slated to take effect in 2026 might be delayed to 2031. The province is also proposing to allow the incineration of non-recyclable materials to count for up to 15 per cent of producers' recycling targets. These changes could undermine EPR’s intent to drive higher recycling rates and to hold producers fully responsible for the waste they produce.

Summary

EPR is a significant shift in waste management and an important step in sustaining a circular economy. It has the potential to increase recycling rates, reduce waste production and greenhouse gas emissions and spur innovation and efficiency in the pursuit of greener products and packaging. But with its rocky transition phase, only time will tell how effectively EPR will work and what the benefits will be. So, while EPR encourages producers to do better, the rest is up to us and how responsibly we live, consume and discard.

Edited by Jess Blackwell, Lumida Creative Services