Plastics

The Ontario Blue Box Program Plan and Stewardship Ontario's approved stewards' fee setting methodology provide for material specific market development strategies where there are market barriers to increasing the recovery of specific Blue Box materials. Stewardship Ontario implements a program of market development activities to:

1. Help ensure there is sufficient market capacity for recovered Blue Box materials; and
2. Enhance the revenue received for materials – to lower the overall net Blue Box system cost to both stewards and municipalities.

In 2006 Stewardship Ontario initiated efforts to recycle a broader range of plastic packaging. We completed a comprehensive study of barriers to successful recycling of non-bottle rigid plastics – packaging that includes cottage cheese tubs, yogurt capsules and clamshells. We then sought out companies with an interest in finding ways to overcome those barriers, and invited them to propose how they would deploy technology and innovation to create commercially sustainable solutions.

EFS Plastics and Entropex were the two successful companies to emerge from this process and in 2009 Stewardship Ontario agreed to provide up to $2.5 million to test these concepts commercially and expand local recycling capacity. Both projects were underway by 2010 and the first stage of each project was successful. Both EFS Plastics and Entropex are now proceeding to the next stage of expansion.

Stewardship Ontario has also worked with Gracious Living, a local plastics product manufacturer, to assist with the introduction of new products made from recycled Blue Box plastics processed by Entropex and EFS Plastics.

Ontario Blue Box plastics are also a major component of Canadian Tire’s new Blue Planet line of products sold
throughout Canada, which means that plastic packaging – once thought to be “unrecyclable” – is now gracing
the homes of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Stewardship Ontario is very proud of these achievements and each accomplishment opens new possibilities.