Starting April 1, 2025 eligible communities will begin the transition of their recycling programs to the new extended producer responsibility framework under Alberta’s Extended Producer Regulation.
This change marks a significant shift in how recycling programs will be managed, placing more responsibility on producers to ensure effective recycling processes.
Program-related resources and information.
Here are the updated community curbside and depot service agreements for eligible communities.
Transition Models for Collection Services
To ensure a seamless transition in Alberta, Circular Materials is working with registered communities to transition their collection services to EPR via two different models:
To support ongoing collaboration with municipalities, we have established a Municipal Working Group as a forum to share feedback, raise questions and directly engage with our team.
You only need to register once to attend all the Municipal Working Group meetings. Once registered, you will be sent a confirmation email from Zoom and can add all the meeting dates to your calendar.
If you have questions, please contact aboperations@circularmaterials.ca
Circular Materials has assessed insurance required across its national programs.
To reduce barriers and where possible, we have reduced insurance requirements in some areas.
Where the MSA has been executed (prior to recent amendments), we will provide an amendment to those agreements.
The below insurance requirements are applicable to both curbside and depot operators.
View the onboarding process here.
The base list of accepted PPP materials will apply to every community receiving curbside collection starting April 1, 2025.
View more information on the base list of accepted materials here.
View available promotion and education resources on our portal.
Check out our FAQs below to find out more about Alberta’s EPR transition. If you have any further questions, please contact us at info@circularmaterials.ca.
Opt-in: Please contact Circular Materials at ABoperations@circularmaterials.ca to schedule a meeting to discuss the particulars of your current agreement and the potential for extension beyond April 1, 2025.
Opt-out: Please extend only until March 31, 2025, but ensure Circular Materials has confirmation as soon as possible of your intention to opt-out.
A community who chooses to opt-in initially can change to an opt-out service model later. However, a community who chooses to opt-out initially, can not change their service model to opt-in later.
Opt-in: Circular Materials will work with you to determine a compensation offer based on your current contract and will enter into an agreement with you for the same term. You will continue to manage your current service provider agreement.
Opt-out: Circular Materials will negotiate with your incumbent service provider as a first option, review term remaining, and review bridge agreement options where possible.
Opt-in and opt-out service models only apply to curbside collection. Should your depot(s) be eligible, we would work directly with your community on a separate agreement for which would either be a Depot Operations Statement of Work or an RCT (Receive, Consolidate, and Transfer) Statement of Work depending on the services we are looking to contract for.
Circular Materials will schedule a meeting once a community has completed the required documentation to plan next steps. Meetings will take place throughout July-September 2024 to work to finalize financial offers.
Circular Materials will work to ensure minimal impact to residents’ recycling services. The regulation requires a minimum service level of every two weeks for curbside recycling collection. Circular Materials will do their best to keep the service level frequency the same as it is currently. Material tonnages will need to be confirmed for your community to support this process.
Opt-in and opt-out service models only apply to curbside collection. Should your depot(s) be eligible, we would work directly with your community on a separate agreement for which would either be a Depot Operations Statement of Work or an RCT (Receive, Consolidate, and Transfer) Statement of Work depending on the services we are looking to contract for.
Circular Materials will need to review these details in meetings with each community and through detailed financial discussions. Access to your general ledger will help confirm how services and financial offers will be structured when there are shared land use, ownership or leasing implications relating to depots in Alberta.
If you have any further questions, please contact us at ABoperations@circularmaterials.ca.
On review of the available GLs and financial data that was provided, there was found to be significant inconsistencies. As timelines are shortening, a new market rate approach was developed.
This pricing is based on a greater analysis of the available GL data, actual depot costs, and contractor information plus further data such as the type of depots and populations served. Offers reflect the collection of residential PPP materials only, not all depot operations.
Unfortunately, we are unable to share the exact calculation with your community. Each offer is based on the type or types of depots in your community such as staffed or unstaffed and the population served by the depot(s).
Please let us know what we should be considering and what is unique to your community. The offer is only to cover the residential PPP materials and not all depot operations.
Circular Materials cannot disclose confidential information such as the compensation offers being provided to other communities.
For ease of contracting, as Circular Materials has done with curbside agreements, communities will have a base offer to September 30, 2026. The Phase 2 requirements of the Alberta regulation will mean that many PPP depot only communities that have curbside garbage, will be provided with curbside PPP service for October 1, 2026.
The specifics of the services can be found in the MSA and Depot SOWs, however the services boil down to the following key activities:
