ANNUAL REPORT
2022

Registry access for all

RPRA scaled up our producer responsibility programs in 2022 by developing two registry portals for hazardous and special products and Blue Box producers. We also launched a new lighting program – the first-ever producer responsibility program for lighting in Ontario.

New Hazardous Waste Program Registry

The new HWP Registry opened for registration in November 2022 and for manifesting on January 1, 2023. It is RPRA’s largest and most complex registry project to date, with the capacity to handle 250,000 waste shipments annually.

The project’s success depended on unprecedented collaboration with the affected industries, technology vendors, and the ministry over two years of project development.

The result is a trail-blazing electronic manifesting system for regulated liquid industrial and hazardous wastes – the first of its kind in Canada – built on time and on budget.

Reporting on resource recovery

RPRA created a dedicated public reporting section on our website to report on compliance activities and resource recovery information.

Public reporting is critical to business success in the growing resource recovery sector: Producers need it for benchmarking against other jurisdictions; municipalities require it to assess sufficiency of accessibility; producer responsibility organizations require it to better understand the market and competition; and the public requires information on the progress of Ontario’s transition to a circular economy.

In 2022 we posted supply and performance information for producer responsibility programs on our website, and in 2023 we posted compliance orders and administrative penalties. We will post more data on supply and performance, contextual analysis of that data, plus information on compliance activities later in 2023.

Meeting registrant needs and working towards compliance

RPRA’s front line staff team increased by almost 40% in 2022 to provide support to thousands of registrants over eight different programs. Staff fielded over 40,000 inquiries, helping registrants to understand and fulfill their regulatory obligations.

Compliance officers identified over 155 substantiated cases of non-compliance in 2022. Over 50% of these cases were resolved within the year. RPRA identified over 1,000 potential free riders across all programs and continues to resolve remaining cases.

Targeted communications campaigns about how and when to submit reports helped ensure over 70% of registered producers submitted a report by the end of 2022.

Inspections into the battery program collection systems resulted in battery producers addressing deficiencies in the used battery collection system. Inspections into the tire program collection systems resulted in RPRA issuing compliance orders to tire producers in spring 2023 to compel immediate mitigation.

Blue Box transition readiness

We ramped up our communications and outreach to Blue Box producers, PROs and municipalities in 2022 to ready all stakeholders for the first group of municipalities and First Nations to transition to the new producer responsibility regulatory framework on July 1, 2023.

We held two webinars as part of an ongoing learning series, Understanding Ontario’s New Blue Box Regulation: The first was to clarify amendments to the Blue Box Regulation made by the Ontario government in April 2022, and the second was a walkthrough of the Blue Box registry portal for producers to complete their supply reports.

View the slides and listen to the recordings of these webinars by clicking the links in the Learning Series sidebar here.

Consultation and engagement

For businesses, transitioning to the new producer responsibility regulatory framework involves ongoing adjustment to change. To provide effective service and help the regulated community comply, RPRA engaged stakeholders through eight formal consultations and many informal consultations and meetings, as well as regular meetings with the Industry Advisory Council and Service Provider Advisory Council.

The feedback we obtained informed all aspects of RPRA’s work, including reducing administrative burden where possible, demonstrating value for money, enhancing the user-friendliness of our technology platforms, and aligning with existing business processes.