On September 4, 2025, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in Ontario, Canada announced amendments to its Blue Box Regulation, a part of the 2016 Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act (RRCEA) that governs Ontario’s transition to an extended producer responsibility (EPR) recycling model. Ontario enters phase II of this scheme on January 1, 2026, and will require companies to meet mandatory recycling targets for their packaging materials.
The amendments, which were originally proposed on June 4, 2025, aimed to reduce costs and increase flexibility. They have now been updated to reflect the 283 comments received during the ensuing public consultation from citizens, producers, producer responsibility organizations, municipalities, school boards, environmental non-governmental organizations, industry associations, waste service providers, and an Indigenous organization.
While the changes to the amendments address some of the concerns about cost and feasibility from producers, critics state that they narrow the scope and weaken the targets of the legislation by reducing the number of settings producers are responsible for and allowing for waste incineration in “limited circumstances,” Charlotte Niemiec from Chemical Watch & Insight reported.
The new amendments:
- Maintain current recovery targets for paper, glass, metal, and rigid plastic, deferring any target increases until 2032
- Phase in recovery targets for flexible plastics over 10 years, starting at 10% in 2026-27, increasing to 15% in 2028-31, and reaching 25% in 2032 onward
- Remove the “away from home” requirement for beverage containers, which would require producers to collect and manage recyclables used outside of residential settings, and defer the target increase to 2032
- Require “best efforts” to meet targets in 2026 and 2027, require all collected materials to be sent to a registered processor, and require processors to provide a mid-2027 report on diversion performance
- Defer expanded collection to multi-residential buildings, schools, and specified long-term care home and retirement homes that did not previously receive municipal recycling service, until 2031
- Remove the requirement to expand collection in public spaces
- Allow up to 15% of a producer’s management obligation to be met through energy recovery from residuals of the recovery process in limited circumstances
Starting January 1, 2026, Circular Materials will be taking over recycling across Ontario from municipalities. This not-for-profit was founded to manage recycling on behalf of major brands such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola as Canadian provinces move to EPR models. Circular Materials claims that the new recycling program in Ontario will allow consumers to “recycle more materials than ever before,” including “coffee cups and other hot and cold paper-based and plastic-lined beverage cups.”
Reference
Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (September 4, 2025). “Amendments to the Blue Box Regulation.” Government of Ontario, Canada.
Read more
Charlotte Niemiec (September 15, 2025). “Ontario defers certain packaging EPR targets in bid to lower industry costs.” Chemical Watch News & Insight.
Circular Materials (September 23, 2025). “Get ready, Ontario! Recycle more than ever before starting in 2026!”
