For New Stewards

Please follow the steps below to determine if your company is obligated under the Waste Diversion Act and to discharge any potential obligations you or your company may have under this law.

Determine whether you’re a steward
Choose a primary contact.
Register your company with Stewardship Ontario.
Collect data for your steward’s report.
File your steward’s report(s).

Reporting and payment timelines
Penalties and interest

Step 1: Determine whether you’re a steward

The Waste Diversion Act requires companies that are ”stewards" of Designated Blue Box Waste to share in funding 50% of the net cost of Ontario municipal Blue Box program. The questions below will help you determine if your company is likely to be a steward.

1. Is your company resident in Ontario?

To determine residency, please review Appendix B of 2012 Rules (available here).

Companies that are not resident in Ontario are not obligated under the Waste Diversion Act. However, you may volunteer to become a steward and accept reporting responsibilities and make payments on behalf of another company. Please read the Voluntary Steward Procedures and Agreement (download pdf) carefully before submitting your application. Stewardship Ontario reserves the right to reject such agreements.

2. Are you/is your company a brand owner, first importer," or franchisor (which is a brand owner) of one or more products sold in Ontario with packaging, or that issues, sells and/or distributes printed material that is managed in the Ontario residential waste stream?

“Brand owner” and/or “franchisor” is a company/organization or person that is a registered trademark holder or licensee of a trademark (brand); or a company or person that owns or is the licensee of intellectual property rights of a brand of printed material or product. (If you or your company’s brand or trademark is on any product or product packaging and/or printed matter, then you or your company is the brand owner of that product and packaging or printed matter).

“First importer” is a company or person that imports products – from other Canadian provinces or from other countries – into the province where the brand owner(s) is/are not resident in Ontario.

3. Do your products generate Designated Blue Box Waste?

Designated Blue Box Waste (DBBW) is defined as “packaging and/or printed material consisting of one of or a combination of glass, metal, paper, plastic, or textiles” and that is potentially managed in the Ontario residential waste system.

4. Were your company’s gross Ontario sales for any obligation year beginning with 2002 and continuing to the current year, greater than $2 million? Or is your company a non-profit entity?

Gross Ontario sales is the combined gross revenues from the sale of all products and services in Ontario of your company and all its affiliates (include all commercial and retail sales streams).

Non-profit entities include municipalities, provincial agencies, colleges and universities

If you answered yes to each question, your company is obligated to file a steward’s report with Stewardship Ontario. Please continue to Step 2.

If you answered no to any question, you are not obligated to file a steward's report under the Blue Box Program Plan; however, we recommend that you register your company and receive an official exemption from the program by e-mail.

For more, view the Obligation Flow Chart (download pdf).

Step 2: Choose a Primary Contact

Now that you have determined you are a steward, you will need to designate an individual who will be responsible for fulfilling your obligations.

A “primary contact” is the person who will co-ordinate this process for your company, and who Stewardship Ontario will contact to provide program information updates. The role and purpose of the primary contact is to:

Act on behalf of your organization with respect to your legal obligation
Authorize payments
Gather information internally and file your steward’s report.

Step 3: Register your Company with Stewardship Ontario

To register on WeRecycle, you will need to provide:

Name of steward, mailing and billing addresses, date of report
Primary contact person, contact information for steward’s report, including e-mail

Once registered, you will receive an e-mail with the information you need to log on to WeRecycle.

If you declare that you’re not obligated to file a steward’s report, you will receive an e-mail notifying you that:

Stewardship Ontario may contact you to verify these declarations.
Once registered, you will not be able to register a second time.
Login information will be sent to to the e-mail address provided by the primary contact.

Step 4: Collect your Report Data

You are required to file a steward’s report for every year for which you or your company is obligated. Before you start, you will need to understand four key concepts.

Gross Ontario Sales (GOS): the combined gross revenues from the sale of products and services in Ontario of your company and all its affiliates. To be obligated, these must be greater than $ 2 million for a specified data year. Organizations are to include the sales of all products and services from all divisions and affiliates in Ontario.
Designated Blue Box Waste (DBBW): includes any one of or a combination of glass, metal, paper, plastic, or textiles potentially disposed of in the Ontario residential waste system. If your company sold or distributed products with packaging and/or printed material consisting of DBBW for a specified data year, the company is obligated.
Data Year: is the calendar year (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 or 2011) for which you collect packaging and printed material data for use in calculating your obligation under the Waste Diversion Act.
Obligation Year: is the calendar year in which you’re obligated to produce a steward’s report and potentially pay fees to Stewardship Ontario. Obligation years to date include:
- 2003 & 2004 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2002 collect and file reports with 2002 data).
  Note: 2002 data only need to be filed once; when the 2003 steward's report is submitted, the 2004 report will automatically be generated.
- 2005 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2003 collect and file reports with 2003 data).
- 2006 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2004 collect and file reports with 2004 data).
- 2007 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2006 collect and file reports with 2006 data).
- 2008 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2007 collect and file reports with 2007 data).
- 2009 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2008 collect and file reports with 2008 data).
- 2010 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2009 collect and file reports with 2009 data).
- 2011 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2010 collect and file reports with 2010 data).
- 2012 (companies with GOS>$2 million and with DBBW in 2011 collect and file reports with 2011 data)

Note: As a result of a program modification for 2007, you will never be required to collect and submit 2005 data to Stewardship Ontario. Stewards with outstanding steward’s reports are required to file them in chronological order starting from 2003 to 2012.

Step 5: File your Steward’s Report

You are required to collect and report the annual weight of your obligated packaging and printed material in kilograms by material.

Once you have collected data on the weight of all your packaging and printed materials, you can enter the information in WeReycle, our online reporting system. You will need your login information to access the system. If you don’t have it, contact Steward Services at 1-888-288-3360 and we will e-mail it to the primary contact on file.

You are now required to include all brand names, and affiliated companies, in your steward's report.

The reporting system automatically calculates how much you are required to pay based on the amount of each DBWW material you used in packaging or printed materials during the “data year.”

View the 2010 rates applied to the various material categories or visit the Blue Box section of the library to review the fees for all previous obligation years.

Reporting and Payment Timelines

Reporting and payment deadlines for all obligation years are 93 days from each steward’s date of notification for each obligation year. You can refer to the Blue Box section of our library to find payment timelines for previous obligation years.

Note: Stewards that do not comply within 93 days of notification by submitting and making their first payment, may be subject to enforcement action under the WDA.

Penalties and Interest

Obligated companies that fail to pay fees as set out in the Reporting and Payment Schedule will be subject to penalties and interest charges. For more information, please review the penalties and interests section of the Rules.

Steward