Selwyn Township is urging the province to exempt non-profits such as food banks from the producer responsibility non-eligible source list for recycling.
In January 2026, the province will be moving to a producer responsibility model for recycling. This means that those who produce recyclable material will have to pay for collection and depositing of the materials themselves rather than having the townships or county collect it at the curbside.
Within that list of non-eligible sources/businesses include food banks, churches, and other charities and non-profit organizations.
This means that these sources will have to pay a contractor hundreds of dollars in the new year to collect their recyclable materials and dispose of them at a designated non-eligible source site. They will not be able to use local landfills or the current curbside collection methods that they use now.
During the Nov. 11 council meeting in Selwyn Township, Mayor Sherry Senis passed the chair to Deputy Mayor Black to make a notice of motion requesting that food banks be exempt from this list.
Senis’s motion, which recommended Selwyn strongly urge the Province to re-instate the eligibility for curb side blue box collection as of January 1 2026, for non-profit organizations, such as food banks, was seconded by Coun. Brian Henry.
Senis said during the council meeting, “I recognize that there are a lot of other non-eligible groups that we could add to this motion, but it’s been my experience that if you ask for everything, you get nothing. So I think it’s really important that we do focus on the food banks because they’re run by volunteers not paid people. Any money that gets donated to the food banks is expected to be used for food. It shouldn’t have to be used to pay for recycling to get rid of the cartons and the boxes that the food they get donated comes in. They will be responsible January 1st of 2026 to have to pay for this.”
Senis went on to say that food bank use is on the rise by many different people within the community from all walks of life.
“I think the province has put the food banks in this position by allowing them to be included on the non-eligible list, and we’re just asking them to reinstate it as eligible.”
Her motion specified that food banks receive grocery items that are delivered in cardboard boxes and cartons which generate copious amounts of recyclable material as well as the fact that food banks are volunteer and donation based with no revenue collected to pay for services such as removal of recyclable materials.
The motion was approved by council and will be forwarded to Premier Doug Ford, Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, MPP Dave Smith, County and City of Peterborough, AMO, EOWC and Ontario Municipalities for support.
