Ontario is making companies pay for recycling. But will that keep waste out of landfills?

Ontario is the latest province to make companies foot the bill for processing the paper, plastic and metal that gets tossed into blue bins on a weekly basis.

The idea behind the change is to make industry accountable for recycling — both in terms of the financial bottom line and the targets for the amount of waste that actually gets kept out of landfills.

The plan will roll out starting July 1 and gradually take hold over the next two years.

Environmental groups have welcomed the approach, known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), since it puts the onus on industry.

"The companies that are selling us the packaged goods will be responsible for managing the waste," said Karen Wirsig, plastics program manager with the advocacy group Environmental Defence.

But gaps remain — and environmental groups and experts say they reflect broader problems with the approach to recycling taken across much of Canada.

The focus of the program is primarily on households, which produce less than half of all waste in Ontario, Wirsig said.

It also doesn't include a deposit-and-return system for non-alcoholic beverages, (although Ontario's Environment Ministry is now exploring the idea), nor does it address what experts say is an increase in difficult-to-recycle packaging.

All Canadian provinces now have some form of EPR system for packaging. The Ontario plan will expand to many types of plastic, and will standardize what people can put in their blue boxes in every municipality.

In addition to plastic, paper and cans, residents will also ultimately be able to put in single-use products and packaging, like plastic cups, stir sticks, straws and cutlery.

Calvin Lakhan, a post-doctoral researcher and co-investigator of the Waste Wiki project at York University, said EPR is often characterized as a "cure all" for recycling programs, because in theory it saves taxpayers money and allows for the expansion of recycling programs at the expense of industry.

But he said in practice that hasn't been the case.

"What a lot of people don't realize is that just because you put it in the bin doesn't mean it gets recycled," he said.

"Things like newsprint and water bottles, steel cans, aluminum, those are readily recyclable materials that have very healthy markets. On the opposite end, you have these lightweight composite multi-resin plastics that are either not recyclable in the mechanical recycling system or the costs are thousands of dollars a ton."