Ontario Blue Box report

The Ontario government may be getting out of the blue box business.

The program is currently run by the Ontario stewardship council and the cost is split with municipalities. A new report on the blue box program recommends businesses that produce the waste we recycle pay for the entire cost of blue box collection.

The report also says Ontario’s recycling rates have been stalled for 15 years and up to 30% of what is put into blue boxes can end up in landfills.

Ontario’s environment minister Jeff Yurek says the blue box will still be at the curbside but producers will have to find a new way of collecting or use existing municipal infrastructure.

Yurek says any such change would be phased in over the next seven years.