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Yes, the account administrator on your current ARMA Connect account can add additional users via the “Manage Users” functionality in the drop-down menu at the top right of the Program Selection page next to the current users’ names. This will allow multiple contacts to be associated with an account and allow the account administrator to specify which program and level of administrative access they have.
The access and privacy code includes operational processes for how confidential information remains confidential while still meeting the obligations of FOIP, as outlined in the regulation. Details of confidentiality are outlined in our Access and Privacy Policy.
Additional information can be found on the Government of Alberta’s website or our website. Municipalities and producer responsibility organizations (PROs) are responsible for public information. Please contact your local municipality for further information.
No, EPR will not affect any other stewardship programs.
The changes will be minimal for Albertans who use a depot or curbside pick-up to recycle.
Albertans who live in municipalities that currently do not offer a curbside recycling program will have access to one starting in Phase II of the EPR rollout, meaning that more Albertans will have the opportunity to recycle right at their doorstep.
No, this program creates a greater opportunity for producers to reuse previously created products, as more recyclable products will be returned for a second life.
EPR consists of single-use products, packaging, and paper products (PPP), which include newspapers, packaging, plastics, metal, and glass, and hazardous and special products (HSP), which currently include batteries, pesticides, and materials designated as flammable, corrosive, or toxic (with the official symbols).
Alberta’s Extended Producer Responsibility Regulation came into effect on November 30, 2022. To give time to establish the framework and support stakeholders, EPR systems for Phase I PPP and HSP have been operational since April 1, 2025. Future implementation dates are available here.
After seeing the success of programs in other jurisdictions and the opportunity to enhance Alberta’s circular economy, the Government of Alberta announced that the province would implement an EPR process through an Extended Producer Responsibility Agreement on Administration and Oversight (PDF). To support the implementation, ARMA was selected as the oversight body supporting the Government of Alberta.
ARMA is accountable to the Minister of Environment and Protected Areas and must provide business plans, reports, and audited financial statements to the Minister annually, as well as notice of changes to its bylaws.
Yes, British Columbia and Ontario have implemented successful EPR programs.
British Columbia first launched an EPR program in 2004 and has seen tremendous success as it has gradually increased the types of products included in the framework. Ontario first implemented its program in 2019, and like B.C., it has worked to increase the number of products captured in the framework.
This program will provide several positive opportunities for Alberta. First, it will enhance the recycling rates of products across the province as producers will take responsibility for recycling the products they create—meaning fewer products end up in our landfills.
It will also work to catalyze Alberta’s circular economy, as products that previously ended up in the waste are redirected and recycled into new products to be used again and again. This means more job creation, more economic investment, and larger economies.
Finally, it lessens the burden on municipalities and taxpayers currently covering the cost of recycling products, including batteries, pesticides, and materials designated as flammable, corrosive, or toxic (with the official symbols), including containers and products.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) shifts the physical and financial burden of collecting, sorting, processing and recycling waste to the producer and away from local municipalities and taxpayers.
For example, this means that municipalities currently operating curbside recycling programs will no longer be responsible for their financial costs and, in some instances, will not operate them at all. The producers of the recyclable products will step in and cover the costs and operations.
This will vary depending on several variables, such as the terms of the current contract, what changes, if any, the community wants to make, whether the service provider is amendable to modifications and what arrangement the community has with the PRO. This will require a discussion with all three parties together (the communities, contracted service providers, PROs).
PROs will augment existing depots with additional collection points, where possible.
ARMA has posted the HSP Material Guidelines and the PPP Material Guidelines documents on our website. These are meant to be a guide and may not be an exhaustive list.
Currently, no registered PROs operate programs under both PPP and HSP. Communities will need to identify a PRO for PPP and another for HSP.
Under the PPP and HSP regulations, producers with an annual gross revenue of less than $1.5 million from products and services in Alberta qualify for an exemption.
No, a community is not required to register as a processing facility solely because the community has a depot.
Depots fall under the EPR Regulation’s definition of a processing facility in Section 1(v), as depots receive “designated materials for recycling, downcycling, treatment or disposal.” However, the EPR Regulation doesn’t require processing facilities to register, and Bylaw 2.2 (HSP and PPP) only requires processing facilities to register if they intend to process designated materials on behalf of producers.
If a larger municipality or community authority intends to register on behalf of smaller municipalities (towns, villages, or hamlets), they must submit a separate Community Registration Form for each of the smaller municipalities they are registering. This ensures that all communities wishing to participate in EPR are properly included.
Yes, if a community registers for EPR, the multi-family dwellings within the community can receive recycling services under EPR under Phase II, which begins October 1, 2026.
Please note that this will depend upon the cooperation of the independent multi-family dwelling owners/managers. The PRO will work closely with the community to educate and promote participation in EPR in multi-family dwellings.
If a municipality or Indigenous community cannot supply all required information at the time of registration, the community's program start date may be delayed. Please provide as much information as possible during registration to avoid delays.
Please contact the ARMA EPR team at epr@albertarecycling.ca before submitting your registration form to discuss any information you may need.
If a community is below the revenue threshold, they do not need to register as a producer, and no report is required. If a community is above the revenue threshold and below all material thresholds, then they still need to register and report.
No, there’s no charge to register, and once a community registers for EPR, it can deregister if it no longer wishes to proceed with the registration process. A community may deregister from EPR as long as it has not executed a contract with a PRO.
No, a community is not required to participate in EPR.
ARMA is committed to ensuring that every municipality feels confident in registering and activating the EPR system in their community. As such, part of ARMA’s role as the oversight body for EPR is to provide accessible and comprehensive information to support your decision. Please email our support team at epr@albertarecycling.ca if you have questions about EPR or want more information about registering.
For communities that already have waste and recycling programs, producers will become responsible for the collection system of designated materials. This responsibility will be transferred to producers/PROs through a negotiation process facilitated with ARMA's support.
Those registered for EPR by December 31, 2023, will see producers/PROs assume responsibility for these services starting in April 2025.
A community is a corporation controlled by a municipality or a regional services commission. A community would fall under one of these provincial acts:
No, each role is a separate registration record, and communities must register separately for each role.
The registration process for a community includes the following steps:
The first performance report is scheduled for 2028. Evaluating the system’s effectiveness will focus on how producers meet material management standards. However, the performance metrics for the common collection system are not anticipated to be detailed at the level of individual municipalities but at a provincial level.
The Depot Collection Standards document will specify that the frequency of collection must be suitable for the capacity of the provided collection containers.
ARMA does not communicate directly to consumers, as that is the responsibility of producers and/or PROs. ARMA recommends that communities and community authorities work directly with the producers/PROs to ensure an acceptable level of educational materials. As promotion and education could include (but not be limited to) handouts for residents, producers and PROs could consider a quick printed reference guide that residents can refer to as needed.
The bylaws are intended to set a minimum requirement. The common collection standards will outline additional details regarding certain performance expectations. This could include things like signage, missed collection, and the frequency of bin pickups to ensure sites are properly maintained.
Where depots are used to fulfill EPR requirements, PROs and/or producers are responsible for employing staff to operate these facilities.
As additional depots become necessary, producers and PROs would be responsible for the cost of building and developing new service depots to meet the needs of communities and producers.
The regulation sets a minimum service level of single-family dwelling collection every two (2) weeks. A community would negotiate its contract with the PRO for the service level that it requires.
PROs and/or producers will provide a telephone number and an email address where a person may submit requests for new collection containers or concerns about product collection.
Producers must be registered with ARMA before supplying any designated materials in Alberta. New producers intending to supply designated materials must register with ARMA at least 30 days prior to the date they plan to begin supplying these materials.
Please note that joining a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) that operates in Alberta does not constitute registration. Producers must register directly with ARMA.
If a producer exceeds the $1.5 million revenue threshold and surpasses the volume limit for one category of designated material, they are required to submit an annual report to ARMA. This report will include details on the supply of designated materials, collection system requirements, and material management requirements for the prior calendar year.
Additionally, third-party verification of these components is required. If a producer has retained the services of a PRO, they may elect to have the PRO report on one or more of these components on their behalf. They will also be subject to management targets and required to participate in the common collection system.
Additional measures are not required since our bylaws mandate third-party verification during the reporting process.
The material management requirement target for compliance for producers is October 2027.
The first supply date indicates when the designated material is first supplied into Alberta. It may coincide with the business start date or the date when your organization initially began shipping products to Alberta.
Business Start Date refers to the date of incorporation of the business, which typically corresponds to the date of incorporation in Canada.
We ask that you provide an estimate based on the following: Estimated Annual Gross Revenue in Alberta = (P1/P2) x Canada National Gross Revenue, Where: “P1” represents the population of Alberta, as reported by Statistics Canada in the most recent official census. “P2” represents the total population of provinces and territories in Canada where the producer sells the designated material, as reported by Statistics Canada in the most recent official census.
Once you access ARMA Connect, you will be guided through the registration process, which includes a series of questions designed to determine your organization’s eligibility and requirements. If your organization qualifies for an exemption based on the responses provided during the registration process, you will receive an automated confirmation of exemption through the system.
For producers who exceed the revenue threshold but fall below the designated material threshold as specified by the Bylaws, the following obligations apply:
The revenue threshold for obligated producers includes the company's total revenue from all sales channels in Alberta.
Yes, the bylaws currently outline what is required in the verification plan.
Yes, registration with ARMA to report as a supplier in any of Alberta’s stewardship programs is independent of the EPR-related obligation to register and report if you are a PPP or HSP producer.
These are separate regulations. A producer can use the same ARMA Connect account and add a new registration for the PPP and/or HSP material streams under EPR. Additional users may be given access.
The management report covers the management and processing of designated materials, aligning with EPR regulation objectives. It encompasses data on each material type’s collection, recycling, recovery, and disposal. The Verification Procedure will provide a comprehensive explanation of each report's contents.
The supply report comprises information about the quantities and types of materials supplied to Alberta within a specified time frame. The verification procedure will offer more detailed information about the contents of each report.
Free riders are producers that supply designated materials and:
The Bylaws outline the penalty rates for non-compliance, which are per non-compliance. Regulation contravention penalties are outside the scope of ARMA's oversight.
A first importer is a company that is the first to take possession or control of products entering Alberta from outside the province. If the brand owner is not a resident of Canada, the first importer of a brand becomes the obligated producer of PPP associated with imported goods.
PROs operate as not-for-profit entities and charge producers for the services they provide. The specific terms and conditions, including fees and payment schedules, are determined within each individual contract between a PRO and a producer.
If the PRO you collaborate with in other regions isn’t listed when you attempt to register in ARMA, it usually indicates they haven’t registered with us yet. Please get in touch with your PRO to see if they plan to operate in Alberta.
There is no deadline for a producer to decide whether to work with a PRO or select one. If a producer has agreed to work with a PRO, the delegation relationship must be documented in ARMA’s registry portal through your account.
Yes, a producer may register in the system even if they do not know whether or not they will use a PRO at the time of registration. They can designate a PRO at a later date if they desire.
Yes, producers can switch their PRO. This can be done through ARMA Connect.
Producers are not required to sign up with a PRO to meet their regulatory requirements. Whether a producer works with a PRO is a business decision, and a producer can choose to meet their obligations without a PRO. Learn more about PROs.
No, where a producer is exempt, the regulatory obligations do not become the responsibility of the organization next in the producer hierarchy.
While the exempt producer remains the “producer” for those materials, they are simply exempt from certain requirements under the regulation as set out in the relevant provisions providing for the exemption.
A brand holder is an organization or company that registers a trademark. If the brand/trademark is unregistered, the organization or company that owns the intellectual property rights to it is the “brand holder.”
If a brand holder is a resident of Canada, it is the obligated producer of the PPP or HSP associated with its brands supplied to residential consumers in the province of Alberta, regardless of whether the products are supplied by a licensee of the brand owner, a distributor, or a retailer or supplied directly by the brand holder to the residential consumer.
A producer supplies either PPP (packaging, paper producers or packaging-like products), HSP material (hazardous and special products), or a combination of these materials to consumers.
Metal recycling under PPP includes aluminum cans but not aluminum beverage containers.
Yes, styrofoam, or expanded polystyrene, falls under Alberta's designated single-use products, packaging, and paper products (PPP) materials category. This includes meat trays, beverage cups, packing peanuts, cushion packaging, and plastic egg cartons.
The supplier of the unbranded product is the obligated producer. Unbranded products are products that do not have any mark, word, name, symbol, design, device or graphical element, or any combination of these, including a registered or unregistered trademark, which identifies a product and distinguishes it from other products.
For example, a cucumber in plastic film sold at a grocery store without stickers, labelling, or any other information associated with a brand is considered unbranded. The cucumber supplier would be the producer responsible for reporting the plastic film.
Producers are not required to collect and manage their own branded products and materials. Instead, they are expected to collect and manage a portion of similar materials in Alberta. The portion of material that a producer collects and manages is known as their minimum management requirement, a total based on calculations outlined in the applicable Regulation. The calculated amount is proportionate to the weight of materials the producer supplied to the province.
For example, a producer who supplied cardboard boxes to Alberta does not need to collect and manage those exact cardboard boxes. Instead, they need to ensure that paper of an equivalent weight to what they supplied to the province is collected and managed.
Almost all producers will work with producer responsibility organizations (PROs) to meet their obligations to collect and manage materials. PROs establish collection and management systems across Alberta for different material types. A producer can meet their obligations to collect and manage materials by contracting with a PRO to provide these services on their behalf.
To report supply data under the EPR Regulation, the weight of the newspaper, including any protective wrapping and supplemental advertisements and inserts, must be reported in the appropriate material categories.
This means that newspapers must be reported in the “paper” category, while any protective plastic wrapping must be reported as “flexible plastic.” When reporting either their total supply or the percentage of their total supply, which is newspaper, a producer should only include the weight of single-use products, packaging, and paper products (PPP) materials for which they are the producer.
For example, if flyers have a different brand holder resident in Canada than the newspaper they are supplied with, the newspaper producer should not report the flyer insert weight. Instead, the brand holder of those flyers is required to include the weight of those flyers in their own report.
Each producer of single-use products, packaging and paper products (PPP) is required to report the PPP packaging they add to a product.
For example, a university bookstore plans to ship a book to a consumer in Alberta. The bookstore staff packages the book in a small box with the packing slip and inserts the box into a plastic mailer supplied by the delivery service with the required label affixed. In this scenario, the university is the obligated producer of the small box and packing slip and must report these materials in their supply report. In contrast, the delivery company is the obligated producer of the plastic mailer and label and must report these materials in their supply report.
A PPP producer is an entity that supplies materials made of paper, glass, metal, plastic, or a combination of these to consumers. This includes both products and the packaging for products. You might need to register as a PPP producer if:
There are no exclusions for refillable containers. Refillable containers collected in the common collection system must be managed as HSP at the end of their life.
A refillable/reusable item can be captured through an alternative collection system, such as if the product is returned to the vendor option and ARMA approves that system. Important considerations for producers/PROs include processing costs, the container life span, and any tracking necessary for returns and refills. Several common propane refillable cylinders are excluded by the upper size limitation of 680g.
No, batteries included in the electronics (such as in a cell phone) are part of the electronics recycling program, whereas batteries sold separately or individually are part of HSP.
No, if the product is a paint aerosol, it is in the paint recycling program, not HSP.
ARMA considers an aerosol container (associated with EPR) to be a non-refillable receptacle that contains a product and a propellant under pressure and that is filled with a release device, allowing the contents to be ejected as solid or liquid particles in suspension in a gas or as a foam, paste, powder, liquid, or gas.
An HSP producer supplies the following to Alberta:
The system does not include HSP products sold in industrial sizes.
To avoid duplicating requirements, HSP materials regulated under existing regulated stewardship programs (beverage containers, electronics, paint, tires, and used oil materials) are not included in EPR HSP.
Yes, ARMA performs a thorough vetting process for PROs to verify their compliance with the regulatory prerequisites, which include operating as a non-profit entity and confirming no affiliation with entities or individuals providing recycling or waste management services for designated materials.
PROs will be activated after ARMA’s due diligence process for each new registration.
A PRO must register with the authority within 30 calendar days of forming an agreement with a producer. However, there is no strict registration deadline, provided that the PRO complies with this stipulation.
Yes, a PRO can report on behalf of a producer. A producer can choose a PRO registered with ARMA to handle their reporting duties during registration. The specific terms and conditions, including fees and payment schedules, are determined within each individual contract between a PRO and a producer.
PROs and producers are required to report to ARMA annually on their performance in meeting established requirements. This includes providing detailed reports on their efforts to promote and educate the public about EPR and ensure that these educational initiatives meet the necessary standards.
A producer responsibility organization (PRO) is a business established to contract with producers to provide collection management and administrative services to help producers meet their regulatory obligations under the Regulation.
Ideally, processing facilities outside Alberta will register with ARMA, granting ARMA the authority to conduct audits on these facilities.
No, a community is not required to register as a processing facility solely because the community has a depot.
Depots fall under the EPR Regulation’s definition of a processing facility in Section 1(v), as depots receive “designated materials for recycling, downcycling, treatment or disposal.” However, the EPR Regulation doesn’t require processing facilities to register, and Bylaw 2.2 (HSP and PPP) only requires processing facilities to register if they intend to process designated materials on behalf of producers.
If the incoming materials are commingled, such as those collected from curbside collection, they would need to be tracked into the facility as mixed. The PRO or producer would still be obligated to meet the material management requirements regarding what materials have been separated and recycled. There is no metric for the incoming material; it is simply a metric of how much material has been managed by the processing facility.
The reporting policy will outline ways to model or estimate the volumes of recyclable material collected when tonnage information is unavailable. Alternate information, such as the size of bins and frequency of collection, may be appropriate substitutions.
There is an obligation in the draft bylaws that the storage (or inventory) is reported annually as part of the annual reporting by the material processing facilities.
A processing facility processes material supplied to a consumer and collected by a PRO.
Register and submit your supply reports as soon as possible.
The dedicated producer page provides resources to support producer compliance. It includes links to step-by-step registration and reporting procedures to help you get started on the ARMA Connect portal. If you require further assistance, please contact our registration team at epr@albertarecycling.ca.
ARMA will be issuing invoices directly to all producers subject to oversight fees.
Payment of oversight fees through a delegated PRO is a feature under consideration, but PROs have confirmed that this feature will not be ready for the 2025 invoice cycle. Therefore, producers will pay ARMA the 2024 and 2025 oversight fees directly through the ARMA Connect portal. Producers will be informed if the option to pay through a delegated PRO becomes available.
The 2024 oversight fee invoice was issued to producers in January 2025, and the 2025 oversight fee invoice will be issued to producers in April 2025.
Moving forward, oversight fees will be billed in April of each year. The 2024 oversight fee invoice was shifted to 2025 based on consultation with industry early this year. There was consensus that deferring the billing would allow producers to better anticipate and budget for the expense next year.
Oversight fees are subject to standard federal and provincial taxes applicable to services. The GST or HST rate applied is based on the province of the producer’s home office address.
For a producer subject to the variable fee because they supply over the threshold weight, the variable fee rate applies to the total supply reported, not just the weight above the threshold.
For example, a producer that reported 150,000 kg of PPP materials in 2023 can calculate their oversight fee estimate for 2024 in the following manner:
Flat Fee $75 + Variable Fee $0.0150/kg x 150,000kg = $2,250.00 + Applicable GST/HST
Registered PROs are subject to a flat annual oversight fee of $5,000 for 2024 and 2025.
Communities registered to participate in EPR solely to receive recycling services are not subject to oversight fees.
A community that qualifies as a producer supplying designated materials may be considered an obligated producer and subject to oversight fees in that capacity.
For 2025 oversight fees, the two designated materials, PPP and HSP, have different fee rates. However, the oversight fee rate applies to all material types within each designated material stream.
EPR oversight fees only apply to designated materials under PPP and HSP. They do not impact stewardship programs.
There are no exemptions for hazardous and special products (HSP). All producers are subject to oversight fees.
For single-use products, packaging and printed paper products (PPP), producers meeting the following criteria are exempt from oversight fees, as per the EPR Regulation and PPP Bylaw:
The oversight fee that producers are responsible for covers the recovery of costs incurred by ARMA to oversee the EPR system as a whole. This includes activities such as developing the registry system and monitoring producer compliance.
In contrast, fees related to the common collection system and the cost of recycling designated materials are separate and not charged by ARMA. These fees are paid directly to the common collection system operator and/or the Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) managing material collection and recycling on behalf of producers.
