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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.
ARMA protects all personal and confidential information as required by Access to Information Act SA2024 cA-1.4 (ATIA) and the Protection of Privacy Act SA 2024, cP-28.5 (POPA). ATIA and POPA include strict rules that prevent the release of sensitive information, such as personal details, commercially sensitive data, privileged records, and information related to ongoing inspections. ARMA’s Access, Privacy, and Records Management Policy ensures information is handled securely and only disclosed when permitted by law.
You can find detailed EPR information on ARMA’s website, including program requirements and registration guidance. The Government of Alberta also provides official EPR information here. For local recycling program details, contact your municipality or your producer responsibility organization (PRO).
No, EPR will not affect any other stewardship programs.
For most Albertans who already use a depot or curbside recycling service, the changes will be minimal. However, Albertans living in municipalities that do not currently offer curbside recycling will gain access to curbside service starting in Phase II of the EPR rollout in October 2026. This means more households across the province will be able to recycle conveniently 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. Most provinces in Canada now have Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs. Provinces with EPR regulations include British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Yukon. These programs cover materials such as packaging and paper products and continue to expand as provinces modernize their recycling systems.
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 Type Guide and the PPP Material Type Guide 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.
Municipalities should use their annual gross revenue from products and services provided to residents in their municipality to determine whether they qualify for the exemption. Under the EPR Regulation and the PPP Bylaws, producers with less than $1.5 million in annual gross revenue in Alberta are exempt from registration, oversight fees, annual supply reporting, and participation in the common collection system.
No. Communities that operate depots are not required to register as processing facilities if the depot only receives or transfers designated materials.
Under PPP & HSP Bylaw section 3.20, a processing facility must register with ARMA only if it processes or plans to process designated materials on behalf of producers. Depots that simply accept, sort, store, or transfer materials without carrying out processing activities do not fall under this registration requirement.
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.
Any producer who exceeds the $1.5 million revenue threshold must submit an annual supply report to ARMA no later than June 30th of each year. If they are working with a PRO, they may choose to have the PRO report on their behalf. These producers are also required to meet management targets and participate in the common collection system.
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, 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 includes data on each material type’s collection, recycling, recovery, and disposal. Additional guidance on the specific information required for each management report will be provided by ARMA as part of the verification reporting process.
The supply report must include the quantities and types of designated materials supplied into Alberta during the reporting period. Additional guidance on the specific information required for each report will be provided by ARMA as part of the supply and verification reporting process.
A free rider is a producer who supplies designated materials to Alberta but does not meet their obligations under the EPR Regulation. This includes producers who have not registered with ARMA, have not reported their supply of designated materials, or have not established or operated a required collection and management system.
An importer is a company that takes possession of or control of a product entering Alberta from outside the province or country. If the brand owner is not resident in Canada, the importer of a brand becomes the obligated producer of PPP associated with imported goods if that importer is resident in Alberta.
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 must sign up with a PRO in order to participate in the Common Collection System in order to meet their regulatory requirements. A producer may choose to meet their obligations by applying to operate an Alternative Collection System. Learn more about the Alternative Collection System.
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 is any mark, word, name, symbol, design, device, or graphical element—or any combination of these—including a registered or unregistered trademark that identifies a product and distinguishes it from other products.
A brand holder is a person who owns, licenses, or otherwise holds the rights to market a product under the brand.
If a brand holder is a resident of Canada, they are considered the obligated producer of the PPP or HSP associated with their brand(s) when these are supplied to residential consumers in the province of Alberta.
Note:
A producer is an organization or individual that supplies designated materials into Alberta for use by consumers. Designated materials include packaging, paper products, packaging‑like products, hazardous materials, and special products.
Producers may include brand owners, importers, franchisors, and retailers who supply designated materials in the province. Producers are responsible for meeting all obligations under the EPR Regulation, including registration, reporting, and ensuring the collection and recycling of materials they supply.
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.
Most producers meet these obligations by working with producer responsibility organizations (PROs). PROs operate the Common Collection System, a province‑wide collection and management system for different material types. By contracting with a PRO, producers can satisfy their regulatory obligations for the collection, recycling, recovery, and overall management of designated materials. Alternatively, a producer may apply to ARMA to operate an Alternative Collection System.
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.
No. Batteries that are sold with electronic products (i.e., included and/or embedded) such as cell phones, laptops, toys, or other battery‑powered devices are managed through the Electronics Recycling Program.
Loose, standalone, or individually sold batteries fall under the Hazardous and Special Products (HSP) Program. This distinction ensures that materials are managed through the correct program based on how they are supplied in Alberta.
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 (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.
Yes, processing facilities outside Alberta will register with ARMA, granting ARMA the authority to conduct audits on these facilities.
No. Communities that operate depots are not required to register as processing facilities if the depot only receives or transfers designated materials.
Under PPP & HSP Bylaw section 3.20, a processing facility must register with ARMA only if it processes or plans to process designated materials on behalf of producers. Depots that simply accept, sort, store, or transfer materials without carrying out processing activities do not fall under this registration requirement.
Yes. Under PPP & HSP Bylaw section 7.2, registered processing facilities must report on the quantity of designated materials stored at the facility as part of their annual reporting to ARMA.
The requirement to report “stored” material ensures that ARMA can evaluate the full flow of designated materials through processing facilities, including inventory levels that may impact recycling performance, capacity planning, and end‑of‑year material management results.
A processing facility is defined under Alberta’s EPR Regulation as any facility that receives designated materials for recycling, downcycling, treatment, or disposal. A processing facility also includes any facility that exports designated materials outside Alberta for recycling, downcycling, treatment, or disposal.
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.
Producers will receive oversight fee invoices directly from ARMA. Although the ability to pay oversight fees through a delegated PRO remains under consideration, PROs have confirmed that this option will not be available for the 2024, 2025, or 2026 invoice cycles.
As a result, producers must pay their oversight fees for 2024, 2025, and 2026 directly to ARMA. ARMA will notify producers if the option to pay through a delegated PRO becomes available in future years.
Starting in 2025, oversight fee invoices will be issued in April of each year, and this schedule continues going forward. Producers will receive their annual oversight fee invoices each April through the ARMA Connect portal.
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.
No. For producers subject to the variable oversight fee, the variable rate applies to the total quantity of designated materials supplied, not just the weight above the threshold.
For example, a producer who reported 150,000 kg of PPP materials supplied in 2024 can estimate their 2026 oversight fee as follows:
This calculation demonstrates that the variable rate is applied to the entire supply weight, not just the portion above the threshold.
Yes. Registered PROs must pay a flat annual oversight fee of $5,000, as outlined in ARMA’s EPR Oversight Fee Guide, which includes a dedicated section on PRO Annual Oversight Fees and identifies PROs as obligated parties subject to invoicing by ARMA.
This $5,000 fee applies on an annual basis and is payable directly to ARMA.
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.
Oversight fees differ between the two designated material streams, PPP and HSP. However, within each stream, the same rate applies to all material types.
For PPP, the same oversight fee rate applies to all supplies of paper, rigid and flexible plastic, glass, and metal.
For HSP, the same oversight fee rate applies to all supplies of flammable, corrosive, and toxic products, pesticides, and batteries.
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.
