Roughly 90 workers at a York Region recycling facility are set to lose their jobs as Ontario’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) overhaul shifts recycling costs and operations from municipalities to private producers.
Miller Waste, which currently manages the sorting of blue box recyclables at the region’s Waste Management Centre (WMC) in East Gwillimbury, will see its contract expire in January 2026. Lindsay Milne, York’s director of waste management and forestry, confirmed the closure of the facility’s materials recovery section late last month.
While the waste transfer station at the Garfield Wright Boulevard site will continue to run, the portion of the facility where Miller’s staff manually sort, clean and bale collected glass, aluminum, paper and plastics for recycling will cease operations on December 31. The shutdown affects two daily shifts of workers who staff the sorting lines.
The transition is part of Ontario’s move to shift financial and operational responsibility for recycling onto product manufacturers and packaging producers — a system intended to modernize recycling and improve diversion rates, but one that has already resulted in facility closures and staffing cuts in several regions.
York Region has stated that while collection and transfer activities will continue, future processing of blue box materials will be handled by producer-selected operators rather than the municipal system — leaving current workers without positions as the province completes its transition over the coming year.
