On June 4, 2025, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (the Ministry) released for comment proposed amendments to the Blue Box Regulation, with the stated goal of reducing rising blue box program costs and safeguarding the long-term sustainability of Ontario’s residential recycling system. The draft amendments are covered in detail in our bulletin, Proposed Amendments to Ontario’s Blue Box Regulation.
The proposed amendments prompted robust engagement from across the sector, with 283 submissions received from stakeholders. On September 4, 2025, the Government of Ontario published the final amendments in Ontario Regulation 210/25. These amendments diverge in several important respects from the proposal.
In this bulletin, we summarize the amendments and describe their potential implications for responsible producers (usually brand holders or importers of products, but also sometimes retailers) and producer responsibility organizations (PROs) engaged by producers to satisfy their obligations under the Blue Box Regulation.
Key Amendments
1. Deferred Core Material Recovery Targets
Prior to amendment, the Blue Box Regulation was set to require producers to meet enforceable recovery targets for specific categories of materials starting in 2026 — a departure from the “best efforts” standard to which producers had previously been held.
In June 2025, the Ministry proposed delaying recovery targets for paper, glass, metal, rigid plastic and beverage containers by five years until 2031 to enable producers to plan and make the investments needed for collection and recycling. During this period, the proposed amendments would have only required producers to make “best efforts” to meet the targets.
The final amendments maintain the current targets for these material categories until 2028 and require producers to use “best efforts” to comply. After 2028, producers will be required to go beyond “best efforts” to achieve targets or be subject to potential compliance or enforcement action. Recovery targets will not increase until 2032, in contrast to the previous version of the regulation, which envisioned target increases in 2030.
2. Phasing in Flexible Plastic Recovery Targets
The Ministry initially proposed reducing the recovery target for flexible plastics from 25% to 5% for 2026–2029 to reflect the estimated current level of diversion, deferring any increase for five years. The final amendments introduce a phased increase in the recovery target from 10% in 2026–2027 to 15% in 2028–2031 to 25% from 2032 onwards. As described above, producers will only be required to make “best efforts” to meet the 2026–2027 target and will face potential enforcement action thereafter if they fail to meet the flexible plastic recovery targets.
3. Deferring Expanded Collection Requirements
Instead of cancelling the planned expansion to more multi-residential buildings, specified long-term care and retirement homes, and schools as proposed in June 2025, the final amendments defer this requirement until 2031, offering additional time to producers to establish the collection infrastructure necessary to service these new locations, while still signalling that broader coverage remains a policy objective.
4. Permitting Energy Recovery to Count Towards Diversion Targets
The June 2025 proposed amendments would have allowed producers to count the use of non-recyclable materials for energy recovery (for example, where used as fuel in incineration) towards 15% of their management targets. At that time, materials recovered to be used as fuel or sent to an incinerator did not count toward a producer’s recovery targets. The final amendments permit residue from recovery processes that are (i) supplied for use in a product that is fuel or a fuel supplement, or (ii) incinerated for the purpose of producing electricity. These can now count for up to 15% of a producer’s mandatory recovery target for a material category, but only if such use is the sole practical use of the recovered materials.
New Reporting Requirements
In addition to these substantive changes, the amending regulation introduces a new requirement for PROs and material processors to file a mid-2027 report on diversion performance to assist the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA) in assessing the progress made by producers towards meeting their targets. PROs are now required to report by August 31, 2027, on the weight of blue box materials collected and processed under agreements for the producers’ collection systems from the first six months of 2027, including any supplemental and alternative collection systems. Similarly, processors are now expected to report by the same deadline the weight of blue box material supplied to Ontario consumers that they received from the first six months of 2027 and the weight of recovered resources derived from such material, broken down by material category.
Technical Changes
The amending regulation also implements the following technical changes:
- Registered Processor Requirement: In its proposed June 2025 amendments, the Ministry asked for stakeholder feedback to determine the most effective way to ensure collected materials are not sent directly to a landfill. To this end, the final amendment requires every producer to ensure that blue box material it collects is processed by a registered processor within three months after its collection.
- Unorganized Territories: The amended regulation requires producer-run blue box depots in municipalities to permit residents of unorganized territories (i.e., an area without a local municipal government) to access those recycling depots in certain circumstances. Because the Blue Box Regulation does not require producers to establish recycling depots in unorganized territories (except those with a local services board), without this amendment, these residents would potentially lose access to existing recycling depots in adjacent municipalities that they were previously permitted to use.
Implications for Producers and PROs
The deferral of collection service expansion until 2031, the reduction of recovery targets for flexible plastics and the delay in recovery target increases for other material categories until 2032 affords additional time to invest in collection and recycling infrastructure. Nevertheless, producers should bear in mind that they are now legally required to ensure that all collected materials by them or their PRO are sent to a registered processor and that, as of 2028, recovery targets of all material will become strictly enforceable. Failure to comply with either of these requirements could result in the RPRA pursuing compliance and enforcement action.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the authors or any member of our Environmental group.
