The City of Thunder Bay is taking steps to ensure a seamless transition as Ontario moves to a new provincial model for recycling depots, according to the city’s solid waste and recycling services manager.
Jason Sherband said with mere weeks remaining before the city sees the number of recycling depots reduced from three to one, uncertainty remains about where that single depot will be located. But residents need not worry.
Toronto-based Circular Materials, a non-profit, takes over recycling depot operations from the City of Thunder Bay on Jan. 1 as part of Ontario’s new producer responsibility program.
The program is part of a provincial regulation that is shifting responsibility for recycling from cities to producers of blue box materials.
“The big concern, that obviously we have as the city, is here we are closing in at the end of the year and we still don’t know from Circular Materials where their required depot will be come January 1st,” Sherband told CBC Thunder Bay.
The three existing depots are located at Walsh Street, Front Street and the city’s Solid Waste and Recycling Facility on Mapleward Road.
Given the uncertainty around the depot operations, Sherband said “we’re putting some measures in place to really maintain continuity of service here.”
He said “that will give some time for Circular Materials to figure out what they’re doing here in the city in terms of are they going to operate the Walsh site, or are they going to select another site? Because as of right now we don’t have the answer to that and we are getting closer by the day here to January 1st.”
City to continue funding all 3 depots for now
The City of Thunder Bay transitioned its residential blue box recycling program to full producer responsibility on July 1 last year, according to a city council report.
According to the report, producers have been required to maintain depot collection services for blue box materials in the City of Thunder Bay during the province-wide transition period, which occurred between July 1, 2024, and Dec. 31, 2025.
As of Dec. 31, 2025, the producers, represented by Circular Materials, are obligated to maintain one recycling depot in the community to service multi-residential residents only, the report states.
Sherband said the City of Thunder Bay will continue funding all three depots at least through the first quarter of 2026.
By then, the city will know where the Circular Materials-funded depot will be located, he said.
A report to the city’s Quality of Life Standing Committee, which meets Tuesday, also recommends that the city fund the landfill recycling depot, and one other Thunder Bay depot, until the end of 2026.
An update is also planned for city council in September, which would cover the future of recycling depot operations in 2027 and beyond.
If the standing committee endorses the recommendations on Tuesday, they would then go to council for final approval as part of the 2026 budget process.
More items added to recycling list
Circular Materials CEO Allen Langdon said his company is “in the midst of confirming” where in Thunder Bay the single depot it will be funding will be located.
“At the end of the day, whether they want to continue to operate all three depots is really [the city’s] decision from a common collection system perspective,” Langdon said.
“We just want to determine arrangements on the one that would be part of the overall common collection system in Ontario.”
Circular Materials collects materials, recycles them and then returns them to producers for use as recycled content in new products and packaging. (Kris Ketonen/CBC)
Under the new system, Langdon said people will be able to include additional items for recycling.
“Starting January 1st, we’re going to move to a unified material list, which means that the list of materials accepted for collections are consistent and the same across Ontario,” he said.
“Included in that will be new materials such as hot beverage cups such as coffee cups, deodorant and toothpaste tubes, ice cream tubs, black plastic containers, as well as frozen juice containers.”
A complete list of materials is available on the Circular Materials website, which says the company collects materials, recycles them and then returns them to producers for use as recycled content in new products and packaging.
“Most of the cardboard would be sold to mills here in either Ontario or Quebec. A lot of the plastics will be managed and processed here in Ontario as well,” Langdon said.
“Things like mixed paper or aluminum would be sold down to the U.S., but to the extent possible, we try and market all the material within Ontario or Canada and then North America if we have to.
“We try, to the extent we can, to prevent any material from leaving North America,” added Langdon.