Producer responsibility registration (extended producer responsibility)

Producer responsibility registration is how a business tells a provincial recycling regulator that it is responsible for a product or packaging it brings to market. A buyer of a manufacturer, importer or product brand meets it in diligence as an existing registration, a reporting history or a program account that has to be confirmed in the right name. It sits alongside the other approvals covered in what licences transfer when you buy a business.

How Ontario and British Columbia handle it

Under Ontario’s Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, 2016, a person who holds the brand associated with a product in a designated class may be required to carry out the responsibilities listed in section 61, and section 61(2) allows other persons to be required instead of, or in addition to, that brand holder. A regulation can make that person responsible for registering with the Authority through the Registry (section 66). The Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority is the regulator that enforces the law and operates the online registry. In British Columbia, the Recycling Regulation requires a producer, except as it otherwise provides, either to have an approved extended producer responsibility plan and comply with it, or to comply with the program requirements that apply when there is no plan. This entry does not cover other provinces.

What to check or ask

• Which product categories the business sells, and in which provinces.
• Whether the registration or plan is in the business’s own name or handled through an agent or organization.
• Whether the required reports are filed and up to date.
• Whether the regulator needs to be told, or a new registration made, after the sale.