Ontario Amendments to Tire Producer Responsibility Regulations

Ontario has finalized regulatory amendments for Ontario’s producer responsibility regulations.

The following changes were made to the Tires Regulation:

• Increasing the management target for tire producers from 65% to 80%, which applies to 2026 and each year after.
• Increasing the number of required tire collection sites from about 4,300 to about 6,500 sites, starting in 2027, with a sub-requirement that 220 of the additional sites must be located in northern Ontario.
• Moving the deadline for producer responsibility organizations (PROs) to report their collection networks to the beginning of each year (starting in 2027) and adding conditions that limit when network sites may be changed during the year.
• Adding rules to provide clarity for PROs that choose to share collection sites or trade performance credits to meet targets on behalf of their producer clients.

Other changes include removing the $1 million cap on the maximum administrative penalty amount that can be issued under the Administrative Penalties Regulation. This change will apply to violations of all five producer responsibility regulations and ensure that regulated parties cannot gain a financial benefit from non-compliance.

In addition, we have added a new requirement for PROs across the five regulations to report on financial information (e.g. cost to collect and manage material) that will be used to calculate avoided financial costs when determining administrative penalties. PROs will have to submit a one-time interim report in December 2026 with financial data from 2023-2025 and then provide ongoing financial information as part of annual reports starting in 2027.

The final amendments have been posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO). For details on these amendments, please visit the ERO website at https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/026-0218.

Source: Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks