What’s up with Ontario’s new Blue Box program?
Transition to Extended Producer Responsibility will begin July 1, but a standardized, province-wide list of recyclable items is still years away.
If you’ve ever found yourself puzzling as to what goes in the Blue Box, you’re not alone. Ontario’s regionally specific approach to recycling is confusing, to say the least.
But a new program rolling out this year aims to change that. In July, Ontario’s Blue Box recycling program will begin getting a major revamp.
So what does this mean for the Greater Toronto Area, and what can we expect in the coming years?
How has the Blue Box program worked to date?
In 2020, Ontario’s Blue Box program collected approximately 101,000 tonnes of recycling, which was then sold to markets to be made into something new.
To date, each municipality in Ontario controlled its own program, so what was allowed to go in the recycling bin varied from place to place.
In Toronto, recyclables first get taken to one of seven transfer stations (see the map accompanying this article) before moving on to a Material Recovery Facility. There, materials are sorted into different types for bailing and re-selling to markets.
Non-recyclable items mistakenly placed in the Blue Box — such as certain kinds of plastic or items with food residue on them — are often separated out, but not everything gets caught. And when things sneak through, they can spoil the otherwise recyclable materials they come in contact with.
This is called recycling contamination. In 2019, 30 per cent of materials collected for recycling in Toronto ended up in the landfill because of contanimination, a number that’s only been trending upwards.
Meanwhile, over 20 per cent of a typical Toronto residential garbage bag is filled with materials that can be recycled, causing upwards of 84,000 tonnes of recyclable materials to end up in landfills annually.
Under the Blue Box system that has existed to date, producers covered 50 per cent of the cost of recycling products, and municipalities covered the other 50 per cent.
What’s going to change with the new Blue Box program?
The solution is multi-faceted, and will roll out over several years.
Under the new plan, product producers will take on the full financial and operational responsibility of recycling. This is called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and it’s intended to incentivize companies to reduce packaging and use materials that are more easily recyclable.
Transition is expected to start on July 1, 2023, with the final municipalities coming into the fold by Dec. 31, 2025. Toronto — along with London, Kenora, and the Town of Hawkesbury — will be among the first places to transition to EPR.
The province estimates the new program could save municipalities $156 million per year.
In 2026, once producers have fully taken over, the approved list of recyclable items will be standardized across more than 250 municipalities. That means the same rules will apply no matter where you go in the province, and should hopefully lead to a decrease in the contamination of recyclables.
Over time, Blue Box services will also be expanded to apartment buildings, some long-term care homes, retirement homes, and schools.
What are the caveats?
Some groups believe the new policy doesn’t do enough to help the environment.
The main criticism lies in the fact that the program focuses mostly on residential waste, while industrial waste — which experts peg at nearly 70 per cent of all waste across Ontario — is left to the wayside. Critics also worry that low targets, broad categories, and poor reporting requirements will mean companies can churn out non-recyclable packaging destined for the landfill and face no consequences.
Environmental groups are calling for further measures, including bans on problematic packaging toxic to the environment or human health, and comprehensive and transparent public reporting requirements with a focus on extending EPR to industrial waste producers.
Other groups are looking at what the new program will mean for residents’ wallets. Back in late 2020, experts said we could see the average grocery bill in Ontario go up between $40 and $50 a month, with producers recouping the costs of Extended Producer Responsibility by passing it on to consumers.
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