You may have noticed new stickers on Toronto’s blue bins - it’s a sign of some important changes to the Blue Box happening across the province. (Unfortunately, it’s not going to be good.)

Starting in January, the City of Toronto will no longer have any role in residential recycling. 

That’s because Ontario’s Blue Box regulation changes how recycling will work in every municipality in the Province. The Province’s regulation shifts the responsibility (and cost) for recycling from municipalities to the companies (known as producers) that make single use products and packaging. ) 

Now, Circular Materials, an organization that represents those producers will be responsible for communications, scheduling, collections, sorting, and processing recyclables across the whole Province.

What does this mean for me?

Most Toronto residents won’t see a big difference, but there are a lot of details we don’t know the answer to yet. 

Starting January 1, 2026 you can no longer call 311 about missed pick-ups or recycling details, instead:

• Call Circular Materials at 1-888 921 2686.
• Circular Materials is now responsible for all information, signs, and details.

What you put in recycling bin may or may not stay the same:

• The Blue Box regulation says producers are responsible for ALL packaging. Until now, most cities had a more limited list based on what they could feasibly recycle in a cost-effective way.
• Circular Materials has said that what we can put in the bin will expand to all types of packaging, to include things like squeeze tubes and foil snack wrappers…we’re just not sure when this will happen, or where these items will actually go to be recycled.

If your blue bin is picked up curbside from a house, or you’re in an apartment or condo with City of Toronto waste services:

• Your blue bin will still get picked up, but by different collectors, with no City of Toronto involvement.
• The recycling collection schedule might change, it’s up to Circular Materials, not the City, to determine this.

If you live in an apartment or condo that doesn’t have City collection before January 1st 2026:

• Circular Materials has no role in your recycling system - you or your landlord are stuck paying for recycling for another 5 years. 
• The original plan was for these buildings to get free recycling paid for by the producers in 2026, but due to the Ford government’s amendments to the regulation, you’ll have to wait until 2031.

Small businesses, civic centres, some schools, and long term care homes that get City collection will still get blue bin collection - but Circular Materials isn’t paying for it because:

• The current Blue Box regulation lets packaging producers off the hook for thousands of public and residential spaces, which undermines an progress in recycling.
• The City of Toronto committed to continue providing recycling services to those groups, but in many cities, it’s gone altogether.

What you put in the bin is more likely to get burned:

Ontario amended the regulation after heavy lobbying, so that now producers can meet up to 15% of the recycling target from incineration. Incineration is not the answer and we can tell you why here. This new regulation means, they can burn it and call it recycling.

We know a lot less about where the waste is going:

Ontario’s previous recycling system was operated by municipalities, and they had strict reporting requirements to show what they collected and where it went. Municipalities got funding from producers to cover up to 50% of their costs and there was good quality reporting and transparency.

Under the new regulation, producers don’t have to share the same detailed public information about what was collected and how it was processed.

TEA will continue to monitor changes in Blue Box regulation and share that information, we will also continue to fight these poor regulations because we know Ontario can do better.

Want to learn more about why this happened? We broke it down for you here.