Ontario Tire Rules: Management Target Rises to 80%
Tire Recycling Regulation
Ontario has raised the share of used tires producers must manage from 65% to 80% and will expand the required collection network from roughly 4,300 sites to approximately 6,500, targeting a persistent scrap tire backlog.
The amendments were finalised on 21 September 2026 by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act. The Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority oversees compliance and enforcement.
What Changed
The higher management target applies to the 2026 performance year and every year after, returning the requirement close to its pre-2025 level. It is calculated on the weight of tires supplied into the Ontario market.
The network expansion takes effect on 1 January 2027. Producer responsibility organisations must add approximately 2,200 collection sites on top of the existing requirement, and at least 220 of those must be located in northern Ontario.
Existing geographic distribution requirements for the current network remain in place, so the additional sites extend coverage rather than redistribute it.
From 2027, PROs must report the number, location and contact details of every collection site by 1 January each year. New conditions limit mid-year changes: a reported site may be replaced, but it cannot simply be closed unless a suitable replacement is provided.
Ontario did not adopt the proposed expansion of the call-in collection requirement, which continues to apply only to specified sites including municipalities, band councils and Crown-owned and Crown-operated locations. The minimum collection-weight requirement removed in 2025 was not restored.
The Backlog Behind the Rules
The changes respond to widespread collection disruptions and growing stockpiles at dealers and collection sites. Ontario is also redirecting approximately C$34 million in surplus funds from the former Ontario Tire Stewardship program to registered PROs.
Whether a higher target clears the existing backlog remains an open question. Targets oblige producers to manage more tonnage; they do not by themselves create the processing capacity that tonnage has to flow into.
That is the structural issue facing the province. Collection obligations can be legislated in a single season. Downstream capacity, meaning the plants that convert scrap tires into recovered carbon black, oil and steel, takes years to permit, finance and commission.
An 80% management target applied to Ontario volumes, with a 6,500-site network feeding it from 2027, amounts to a visible and growing feedstock commitment. That is the kind of regulated, auditable supply curve that makes a recovery plant financeable rather than speculative.
Producers and PROs facing the new obligations have a straightforward choice. Pay to move tires to whatever outlet exists and absorb the disruption when outlets tighten, or build capacity that converts the obligation into a revenue line.
Processing Capacity for Ontario Scrap Tire Volumes
Klean Industries delivers scrap tire pyrolysis and recovered carbon black facilities on a KBR turnkey basis: performance-guaranteed, 100% bankable, and structured so the technology and throughput risk stays with us.
The references are commercial and operating, including a commercial-scale recovered carbon black plant in Poland plus delivered resource recovery projects internationally. A regulated 80% target and a mandated 6,500-site network give a feasibility study something rare: a defensible feedstock forecast.
Two routes are available. License the technology and develop the project yourself, or have KBR design, build, commission and guarantee the plant turnkey. Tell us the Ontario tonnage you are obligated to manage and we will show you what it will support.
Contact Klean Industries » GO.
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