Ontario municipalities are welcoming a provincial plan to shift responsibility for blue-box recycling to companies that produce packaging and other waste, but some environmentalists are skeptical.

Environment Minister Jeff Yurek said Thursday that starting in 2023, one year after the next provincial election, waste producers will start funding and operating some of Ontario’s 240 municipal blue-box programs, with province-wide implementation by the end of 2025.

“Transitioning the Blue Box program to full producer-responsibility will promote innovation and increase Ontario’s recycling rates, while saving taxpayers money,” said Yurek, who stressed he wants a “seamless” transition so residents don’t notice any reduction in curbside service.

The timetable, guidelines and goals for a program similar to B.C.’s producer-pay model — that is to say industry-run and -funded, with provincewide blue-bin rules — were developed by Ontario special adviser David Lindsay, who consulted local governments, waste producers and recycling companies.

Under a patchwork of collectibles and rules, Ontario’s municipalities now pay about half of recycling costs. Companies pay the rest through an agency called Stewardship Ontario.

Falling recycling revenues, after China closed the door to all but the most pristine materials, have sent collection costs soaring, prompting concern over the viability of blue-box services. Curbside recycling collection cost Toronto about $20 million last year.

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The province is launching consultations and starting to write regulations to address thorny issues, such as targets for diverting waste from landfill, whether producers alone decide what is deemed recyclable, and what happens to recycling plants and trucks now owned by municipalities.

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, representing 444 local governments, not including Toronto, applauded the move toward producer-pay, which previous provincial governments had planned, but never executed.

“We’re very happy to move forward with something we’ve been advocating for more than a decade,” said Dave Gordon, AMO’s senior adviser on waste-diversion.

“This gives control and operation of the system to the producers who are ones who decide what materials are used in products and packages,” said Gordon, who added that municipalities have struggled to cope with a parade of new packaging, including “stand-up pouches,” now on grocery store shelves.

“The ultimate hope is producers start using products and packaging with more recycled, and recyclable, content.”

Canadian Beverage Association president Jim Goetz said his members, who produce soft drinks among other things, “share the government of Ontario’s goals of reducing litter, increasing recycling and advancing innovation in the circular economy,” that aims to eliminate waste.

Last year, Toronto diverted 52 per cent of waste away from landfill — it is an amount far short of the long-standing 70-per-cent goal — including 66 per cent for single-family homes and 24 per cent for apartment and condo buildings.

Emily Alfred, a senior campaigner at Toronto Environmental Alliance, said making waste producers bear the full cost of recycling is a sound principal.

“But we need to see the regulations because we’re concerned there will be loopholes,” to let businesses avoid costs, she said. “We can’t have producers just say there is no market for some materials so they don’t have to collect it — that would be an incentive to make hard-to-recycle packaging.”

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She also said six years is too long to wait for full implementation.

City councillor Gord Perks, a former Greenpeace campaigner, called Yurek’s announcement “a plan to have a plan.”

“I’ve seen this announcement more times over the years than I can count and it never comes to anything,” Perks said. “There’s no way to provide more money for recycling unless you pick somebody (in industry) who will pay more, and I don’t think this government wants to do that.”

David Rider is the Star’s City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider