Proposed Amendments to Tires and Other Producer Responsibility Regulations

Ontario’s producer responsibility framework ensures that producers of specified materials are accountable for the environmental impact and financial costs of the waste generated by their products in Ontario.

Ontario is seeking feedback on proposed changes to the following regulations under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, 2016 (RRCEA):

• the Tires Regulation (O. Reg. 225/18)
• the Hazardous and Special Products (HSP) Regulation (O. Reg. 449/21)
• the Administrative Penalties Regulation (O. Reg. 558/22)

The proposed changes to the Tires Regulation will ensure that tires are collected and processed in a timely manner.

Other proposed changes, such as removing the cap on administrative penalties, are expected to strengthen enforcement.

Proposed changes to the HSP Regulation are intended to give parties additional time to determine recycling options for antifreeze and oil containers by delaying recycling efficiency requirements by one year. Administrative fixes are also proposed.  

The ministry is also seeking feedback on ways to improve Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) collaboration through clearinghouse provisions and how best to support local processing as part of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework.

Proposed changes to the Tires Regulation:

1. Expand call-in requirements to all sites – Add a provision to require PROs to collect tires from any site that requests pickup and has 50 or more tires, and add a guaranteed response time during peak tire change times.
2. Add new management requirement – Add a new requirement that collected tires must be managed within 3 months of pick-up from any site.

Proposed changes to the HSP Regulation:

3. Revise recycling efficiency rate (RER) requirements - Delay the RER requirements for antifreeze and oil containers to 2028 and seek feedback on revising the RER for mercury containing products.
4. Administrative change to clarify collection site requirements – Revise the regulation to clarify that at least one site is required in the original municipality for upper-tier offsetting, but not for adjacent offsetting. This does not change current requirements but adds clarity in the regulation.

Proposed change to the Administrative Penalties (AP) Regulation:

5. Remove $1 million cap – Remove the cap on the maximum AP amount that can be issued for continuing and non-continuing contraventions.

Seek feedback on possible changes to all EPR regulations:

6. Shared PRO activities – Consider if rules related to PROs sharing collection sites and trading excess performance to meet targets should be added to the framework.
7. Increase Ontario based recycling – Consider if there should be any provisions (e.g. minimum requirement or incentives) for Ontario based processing of materials.

The attached plain language document provides a description of the proposed changes and includes specific questions for feedback.