Toronto residents are in for a waste pick-up transition next year and the city wants to make sure they know about it.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, blue bin collection in Toronto will be run by Circular Materials, a “non-profit producer responsibility organization” tasked by the provincial government with taking over the costs and management of recycling from municipalities.
Circular Materials was founded by McDonald’s, Nestle, Restaurant Brands International (the owner of Tim Hortons), Costco, Sobeys, Kraft Heinz, Pepsi and other companies that sell products that result in a lot of waste.
Along with handing over its recycling responsibilities, the City of Toronto is selling its residential blue bins to the organization.
Beginning on May 20, stickers started being applied to Scarborough residents’ blue bins, letting them know the city will soon no longer be in charge of recycling. The stickering process will slowly move westward until all of Toronto's residential bins have a sticker by this fall.
According to a rendering made by the city, the stickers will say “Ready. Recycle. Repeat” alongside a phone number and website address for Circular Materials. The sticker will cover up the City of Toronto logo that is currently featured on the bins.
Toronto’s Blue Bin Program is changing. ♻️
— City of Toronto 🇨🇦 (@cityoftoronto) May 28, 2025
As of Jan 1, 2026, a new service provider will take over recycling collection, and your Blue Bin will get a sticker with new info. Once you receive notice, leave it out ‘til 7 p.m. on collection day.
Learn more: https://t.co/L6SNRy9sOQ pic.twitter.com/5r9sEvRA8g
The city is concerned about receiving an influx of customer service inquiries about the recycling change after the transition takes place. Councillors voted in April to hire four new full-time customer care staff to work in the waste management division.
The blue box transition is part of Premier Doug Ford’s “circular economy” initiative that aims to make waste producers “responsible for the end-of-life management of their products and packaging.”
Doing so could incentivize companies to produce less packaging and encourage more efficient recycling efforts.
Circular Materials will standardize what is accepted in blue bins provincewide. Last summer, it began a pilot program to accept hot and cold paper-based beverage cups in Toronto blue bins, which could be expanded to other municipalities down the road.
