PROs - Alberta Recycling Management Authority

Producer Responsibility Organizations can play an important role in Alberta's extended producer responsibility system.

What is a PRO in EPR

A PRO, or Producer Responsibility Organization, is a business that collaborates with producers to support them in meeting their regulatory obligations in EPR.

Since EPR mandates that producers take on specific responsibilities for collecting, managing, promoting, and educating about the designated materials they produce, producers can contract the assistance of a PRO.

Learn what PROs are available in Alberta or how your organization can register.

Working With PROs

PROs play a crucial role in helping producers meet their regulatory obligations. They achieve this by:

Establishing Collection and Management Systems: PROs may arrange, establish, or operate collection and management systems, streamlining the recycling process for designated materials.
Reporting: PROs prepare and submit the necessary reports on behalf of the producers, ensuring compliance with reporting requirements.
Promotion and Education: PROs also arrange, establish, or operate promotion and education systems. They inform Alberta residents about changes to recycling programs and educate them on the proper disposal of designated materials.
Representation: PROs represent producers for various purposes under the EPR Regulation.

Recycling employee wearing a safety vest, looking away from the camera at the warehouse of recycling.

How PROs Operate

PROs are responsible for establishing and operating common collection systems to replace the numerous individual recycling programs operating in municipalities, regions, and First Nations communities throughout Alberta. They also manage designated materials collected through these systems to ensure recycling and recovery.

Signing Up With a PRO

Producers may choose to work with a PRO to fulfill their collection, management, promotion, and education obligations. Producers are not obligated to sign up with a PRO; it is a business decision made by individual producers. Producers can work with multiple PROs and enter into contracts at different times to meet various obligations.

What If I Don’t Want to Work With a PRO?

As a producer, if you decide not to contract a PRO, you will be responsible for the operation of your collection, management, promotion, and education systems to meet regulatory requirements. Learn more about producer obligations under the EPR Regulation on our producer webpage.

Effective Date

Collection, management, promotion, and education requirements under the EPR Regulation took effect on April 1, 2025, coinciding with the transition of the first communities in Alberta to producer-run recycling collection services. Producers were required to sign up with a PRO or establish their systems to meet these obligations by April 1, 2025.

What's New

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ARMA Connect

Alberta Recycling Management Authority works with Albertans from all areas of our province, as such, we acknowledge the Indigenous Peoples who have and continue to live among, travel through and care for the land in the area currently known as Alberta. The relationship that Indigenous Peoples of Treaty 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10 have with the land is founded on a deep respect and relationship with the environment. This connection forms the foundation of our responsibility and vision of inspiring a future without waste.