'It should make the transition easier for residents,' says city official of big changes to garbage, recycling programs coming into play on Jan. 1
Fear not, Orillia homeowners. There will be no move to a cart-based system or a transition to every other week blue box pickup in the new year as originally predicted.
The Jan. 1 start of the new residential curbside recycling program should be easy for local residents as the two-stream blue boxes, for paper goods and containers, and day-of pickup remain the same.
"It's business as usual for residential recycling," said Greg Preston, the city's director of environmental services. "Continue to put your material out in your blue box or your recycling box as of Jan. 1 and it will carry on."
Provincewide, the new program, under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, transfers both cost and responsibility for the blue box program to producers of the products themselves, rather than on municipalities.
"Extended producer responsibility is something that municipalities have been calling for for many years," said Preston.
"When you put the cost on the producers that generate that packaging, they tend to make better decisions about what packaging they put out there. They will tend to use packaging that is more easily recyclable and less expensive to recycle.
"It benefits the circular economy. Under the old system, there was no incentive for product producers to make decisions that had recycling of that product in mind."
For example, expanded polystyrene is expensive to recycle and has a small market, whereas cardboard is easy to recycle and has a stronger market.
Another benefit is a cost savings to municipal taxpayers. Taking the blue box program out of Orillia's hands will save approximately $1.8 million next year.
However, the provincial program applies only to household recyclables. The province is not covering the cost or including recyclable pickup from hospitals, churches, businesses and other institutions and organizations.
Coun. David Campbell has recommended Orillia pick up the estimated cost of $275,000 to ensure that recyclables continue to be collected after Jan. 1 and businesses are not saddled with the extra cost of disposal and potential loss of materials getting recycled.
Council has not yet approved the expenditure as part of its 2026 operating budget. The next council meeting is Nov. 3 and the next budget committee meeting is Nov. 12. Amendments put forward by council members will be decided upon before the operating budget is adopted in November.
The new provincial system standardizes recyclable collection materials across the province.
"It creates a common basket of goods," Preston said, meaning what is recyclable in Hamilton is recyclable in Orillia, thus eliminating confusion about what can and cannot be put into bue boxes.
"No matter where you live, you will be able to recycle the same materials. The benefit of that is that the recycling program will be less confusing for people, especially people that move from place to place."
Circular Materials, a national non-profit organization, is managing the program across the province. In Orillia and Simcoe County, Emterra Group has the contract for blue box material pickup.
Earlier this year, Circular Materials was going to bring in the cart system, as is used in Simcoe County, but later decided to keep the two-stream, smaller boxes in Orillia -- one for paper/fibre and one for containers of plastic and metal, said Preston.
"It should make the transition easier for residents," he said.
Another benefit of the program is new products will be accepted into recycling that were not part of Orillia's blue box program.
New products that will be accepted into household recycling containers as of Jan. 1 include the following:
bubble wrap dog/cat food bags toothpaste tubes deodorant containers plant pots chip bags hand cream tubes expanded flexible film packaging including deli pouches, snack wrappers, and cereal liner bags Expanded foam packaging (including expanded polystyrene, foam cups, plates, bowls and takeout containers
Materials that will no longer be collected include the following:
books -- paperbacks and hardcover alcoholic beverage containers
Alcoholic beverage containers have been taken out of the blue box program to promote their return for deposit, said Preston.
The addition of new materials into the blue box program combined with the green bin and yard waste collection should leave little left as garbage.
"Accepting more recyclable materials will definitely help what's going into the garbage stream from residential sources," Preston said.
He said as the program gets closer to the start date, Circular Materials will make more information available. Emterra will be the company that supplies new blue boxes. The location of where people in Orillia can pick them up will be announced at a later date.
The city will continue to distribute green bins, backyard composters, and rain barrels at the waste diversion site in the new year.