Provincial recycling changes are garbage

The shock is still setting in. As of Jan. 1, 2026, there’s no curbside recycling pickup for small businesses, not-for-profit groups, places of worship and other organizations.

You read that right. Restaurants, private seniors’ residences, Kawartha Lakes Food Source, clothing and furniture retailers, A Place Called Home, grocery stores, BGC, churches, Women’s Resources, mosques, museums — they and many other organizations in our community no longer have access to public recycling pickup. These designated industrial, commercial or institutional (ICI) properties even include city libraries and arenas.

They are not permitted to put that recycling in their regular garbage, since of course the new provincially mandated approach is supposedly all about responsible waste management. The only options left for ICIs are to have staff collect recycling and take it to a municipal landfill site, or to pay someone to deal with it.

In the middle of challenging economic times, these businesses and organizations will somehow have to figure out where to find the time and money for employees or volunteers to leave their regular duties to truck considerable amounts of recycling to landfills that already often have lengthy lineups.

It’s entirely possible that the less conscientious among them will simply burn their recycling or throw it on public roadsides or vacant land.

To be clear, this mess was not the city’s idea. The changes come from a move by the province of Ontario that makes the producer-led organization Circular Materials responsible for recycling. (Apparently it was an administrative change so there was no requirement for consultation.) Promoted as an environmental advance that will see companies that produce products and packaging take on this responsibility, the unsurprising reality is that they are doing their best to shirk key aspects of that job.

A year ago, city council wrote to the province to ask for the new system to be extended to cover ICIs. Many other Ontario municipalities have done the same to try and avert the misguided changes. (Although they didn’t have to provide ICI recycling services as part of their waste management programs, most municipalities found a cost-effective way to do the responsible thing.)

Kawartha Lakes councillors have also asked city staff to survey businesses to see what kind of help they need during the transition, and to look into ways the city might collaborate with neighbouring municipalities to restore recycling.

Although there’s faint hope that such a program would be feasible, it would be worth operating it at a small loss, if necessary, to reduce the enormous burden the province is placing on small businesses, non-profits, church