Recycle BC fees 2027 raise 19 of 23 lines, with PET bottles up 10.3% and aluminium containers down 27.1%

How Recycle BC sets a fee rate

Recycle BC is the producer body that runs British Columbia’s residential packaging and paper program under Schedule 5 of the province’s Recycling Regulation, B.C. Reg. 449/2004. The rule is tracked by SPI as PR-CA-004, and the ministry approved Recycle BC’s current stewardship plan on 17 September 2025, with the next review due by 15 April 2028⁷.

The obligated producer is usually the B.C.-resident brand owner. Recycle BC applies a residence test, so where a non-resident producer does not join, the first importer, often the retailer, reports and pays. Businesses with under CAD 1,000,000 of gross B.C. revenue, under one tonne supplied, one retail location or charity status are released from plan duties, SPI’s B.C. fee-market data records⁹.

Each material line gets its own rate through what Recycle BC calls its Four-Step Fee Methodology. The cause-of-change glossary names the steps: gross cost (Step 1), commodity revenue (Step 2), program management (Step 3) and material market development (Step 4), which it defines as investment to improve a material’s recovery performance².

Further factors then reallocate cost between lines: each material’s share of supplied tonnes, its recovery rate, the material cost index, its commodity price per tonne, the count of stewards in the category, reserves and rounding. A line can therefore rise even when the program’s costs are flat, if its share of tonnes collected grows or the price its bales sell for falls.

Recycle BC began publishing the graphs at producers’ request, and the 2027 set covers each of the 23 lines.

In each graph the 2026 rate is the first bar and the 2027 rate the last, with every factor shown in cents per kg between them. SPI read all 23 graphs and checked that the factors add up to each published rate within one hundredth of a cent.

What Recycle BC published in October

15 October: the Annual Producer Meeting. Recycle BC’s 2026 Annual Producer Meeting was held on Thursday 15 October, its page says, with materials including a 2026 Report to Producers, the meeting presentation and a 2027 national material fee rates file⁵. Producers review the coming year’s rates at this meeting each year.

21 October: the 2027 schedule. The fee schedule page was updated on 21 October 2026 with two downloads, the 2027 Fee Schedule and the Cause of Change graphs for 2027 fee rates³. The schedule is one page with 23 lines in six material groups: printed paper, paper packaging, plastics, steel, aluminium and glass.

The rises. Nineteen lines rise. PET bottles gain the most in percent, 10.3% to 107 cents per kg, followed by aseptic containers at 8.8% to 99 cents and expanded polystyrene at 7.6% to 438 cents¹. In cents, expanded polystyrene moves furthest, up 31 cents per kg, or CAD 310 per tonne by SPI’s calculation.

The falls. Four lines fall. Aluminium food and other containers drop 13 cents to 35 cents per kg, plastic film and plastic laminates 10 cents each to 174 cents, and HDPE bottles 2 cents to 45 cents¹. In 2026, by contrast, only PET bottles and aluminium food and other containers fell, by 1.0% and 18.6%.

The category notes. The 2027 schedule repeats two footnotes on how lines are grouped. Kraft paper and PET thermoforms are marked with a single asterisk, and two older lines are marked as folded into larger ones¹.

That split is not new for 2027. Recycle BC’s 2026 Fee Schedule introduced both lines, which then rose 45.3% and 36.7% against their parent categories’ 2025 rates⁴. The 2027 schedule is their second year on their own rates, and both have a 2026 comparison: kraft paper 77 cents and PET thermoforms 134 cents.

What the schedule leaves out. The 2026 schedule opened with a paragraph giving an average increase of 17.6% and naming the outliers. The 2027 page carries no narrative and no average figure, so SPI has not yet confirmed Recycle BC’s average change for 2027 or its 2027 fee budget.

Recycle BC fees 2027, line by line

The full schedule is below with SPI’s calculated changes. Every percentage SPI calculated from the two rate columns matches Recycle BC’s own variance column to one decimal place. The change per tonne is the cents-per-kg change multiplied by ten, which gives CAD per 1,000 kg.

Printed paper and paper packaging rise on every line, by 1 to 8 cents per kg. Corrugated cardboard, a main paper packaging stream for many brands, moves to 63 cents, while boxboard stays the cheapest paper packaging line at 38 cents¹.

Within plastics the spread widens. The lowest plastic rate, HDPE bottles at 45 cents, and the highest, expanded polystyrene at 438 cents, are 9.7 times apart, against 8.7 times in 2026, by SPI’s calculation. PET thermoforms, at 136 cents, now cost 1.27 times PET bottles, down from 1.38 times, because the bottle line rose faster.

Metals and glass split. Steel lines and other aluminium packaging rise 2 to 3 cents, both glass lines rise 3 cents to 61 cents, and aluminium food and other containers fall 13 cents. Clear and coloured glass carry the same rate again in 2027, as they did in 2026.

SPI calculation: at 2027 rates, 1,000 kg of PET bottles costs CAD 1,070 and 1,000 kg of aluminium food and other containers CAD 350, a gap of CAD 720 per tonne against CAD 490 in 2026. A per-kg gap is not a per-pack gap: a can and a bottle of the same volume weigh different amounts, so buyers should compare at their own pack weights.

What drove each line's change

The cause-of-change graphs show the same pattern on most lines. Two factors raised every rate, and the large swings came from a handful of material-specific factors².

Gross cost raised every line. Step 1, the program’s cost to collect, manage, market and oversee recycling, added between 0.76 cents per kg (magazines and catalogues) and 9.22 cents (expanded polystyrene). On PET bottles it added 2.65 cents and on corrugated cardboard 1.57 cents.

Program management and reserves added more. Step 3, the program management budget, added 0.32 to 3.59 cents per kg on every line, with the highest values on aluminium food and other containers (3.59) and expanded polystyrene (3.32). The surplus drawdown or accumulation factor also raised every line, by 0.17 to 2.74 cents. Recycle BC’s glossary says the factor reflects reserves used to finance part of the budget or reserves being built up, and the 2027 graphs do not say which applies, so SPI has not yet confirmed whether reserves are being drawn down less than in 2026 or rebuilt.

Step 4 cut film and laminates. Material market development, the investment line, was zero on 21 lines and minus 17.67 cents per kg on plastic film and plastic laminates. That one factor outweighed 3.72 cents of gross cost and 1.34 cents of program management on each film line².

Commodity prices moved metals and HDPE. Commodity revenue per tonne cut 11.80 cents from aluminium food and other containers, 6.46 cents from HDPE bottles and 3.57 cents from other aluminium packaging. It added 3.51 cents to PET bottles and 1.09 cents to each glass line.

Recovery rate moved several lines. A rising share of collected tonnes adds cost to a line under the model. Recovery rate added 4.87 cents to expanded polystyrene, 3.08 to PET bottles, 2.60 to plastic film and 2.36 to aseptic containers, and cut 7.53 from aluminium containers, 3.78 from rigid polystyrene and 2.27 from PET thermoforms.

Rounding is larger than a cent on some lines. Recycle BC’s glossary describes the last step as rounding fee rates to zero decimal places. On the graphs that step adds 10.39 cents to expanded polystyrene, 7.11 cents to rigid polystyrene and 2.57 cents to gable top cartons, and SPI has not yet confirmed why the step exceeds one cent on those lines.

Who pays more in 2027 and who pays less

Beverage and personal care brands using PET bottles. These producers take the largest percentage rise, 10.3%, or CAD 100 per tonne. The graphs credit 3.08 cents to a higher recovery rate and 3.51 cents to commodity revenue per tonne, so the bottle line is paying more because more of it is collected and its bales earned less per tonne².

Food and drink brands in aluminium containers. These gain most. At 35 cents per kg, the line is now the second-lowest rate on the schedule, above only magazines and catalogues at 30 cents, and 40.7% below its 2025 rate of 59 cents, by SPI’s calculation. Most of the 2027 cut comes from a lower commodity revenue factor and a lower recovery rate share.

Snack, frozen and fresh produce brands in film and laminates. Flexible packaging pays CAD 100 per tonne less, but 174 cents per kg is still 2.8 times corrugated cardboard, down from 3.1 times in 2026, by SPI’s calculation. Film remains one of the four most expensive lines on the schedule.

Meat, egg and foodservice packers using foam. Expanded polystyrene costs CAD 4,380 per tonne in 2027, CAD 310 more than in 2026. In B.C., foam food service ware is already banned under B.C. Reg. 254/2023, with foam trays for raw meat, poultry and fish exempt until 1 July 2030, as SPI’s Ledger on B.C.’s item lists sets out¹¹.

Dairy and juice brands in cartons. Gable top cartons rise 6.3% to 85 cents and aseptic containers 8.8% to 99 cents. For aseptic packs, a higher recovery rate share added 2.36 cents of the 8-cent rise.

Grocers and other first importers. Where a non-resident brand does not join Recycle BC, the first importer, often the retailer, reports and pays at these rates⁹. Private-label ranges in PET bottles and rigid polystyrene therefore carry the steeper rises directly.

SPI calculation: SPI repriced two baskets from its existing B.C. work at 2027 rates. The Ledger’s 100-tonne basket costs CAD 70,960, up CAD 1,840 or 2.7% from CAD 69,120. Corrugated cardboard adds CAD 1,350 and PET bottles CAD 800, while film saves CAD 600 and aluminium containers CAD 520. The grower-packer example in SPI’s fee-market data, 61 tonnes of PET thermoforms, film and boxboard, rises CAD 20 to CAD 74,620, because the film saving almost offsets the thermoform and boxboard rises.

The pinch point: mapping SKUs to the right line by 31 May

A fee schedule only becomes a bill when a producer assigns each pack component to a line. With 23 lines, the same kilogram of plastic can cost 45 cents or 438 cents depending on how it is classed, so classification errors cost more than most rate changes.

Two splits matter most. PET thermoforms, such as clamshells and trays, pay 136 cents against 107 cents for PET bottles, and kraft paper pays 81 cents against 63 cents for corrugated cardboard¹. A producer still mapping thermoforms to the bottle line would under-report by 29 cents per kg; one mapping kraft bags to corrugated would under-report by 18 cents.

The groupings run the other way for telephone books and steel paint cans, which sit inside larger lines and need no separate entry. Recycle BC’s fee page says producers file their reports by 31 May each year and pay quarterly³. SPI has not yet confirmed which quarterly instalment first carries the 2027 rates, which producers should check against their own invoices.

Small producers face a different question. Recycle BC’s page offers a simplified report and flat fee to eligible businesses, but its table still shows 2025 against 2024, from CAD 1,300 for 1,000 to 2,499 kg to CAD 11,800 for 10,000 to 15,000 kg³. SPI has not yet confirmed the flat fee amounts for 2026 or 2027.

How B.C.'s 2027 change compares with other years and provinces

B.C.’s 2027 schedule is quieter than its 2026 one. For 2026, Recycle BC reported an average increase of 17.6%, with every line except PET bottles and aluminium containers rising, and film, kraft paper, PET thermoforms and expanded polystyrene up by more than 25%⁴. For 2027 no line rises more than 10.3%.

Over two years the picture is mixed. Expanded polystyrene is up 41.3% from 310 cents in 2025, and kraft paper 52.8% from the 53-cent corrugated rate it was reported under in 2025, by SPI’s calculation. Aluminium containers are down 40.7% and PET bottles up 9.2%.

Across Canada, producer bodies publish fees on different bases, so the rows below are read one at a time. SPI’s Ledger found that Recycle BC and SK Recycles publish cents per kg, Éco Entreprises Québec publishes its total producer contribution, and Circular Materials posts fee budgets and average rates for its programs, while Ontario producer fees are shared only with registered producers¹⁰.

Ontario may change that. SPI’s 31 October story reported that Ontario’s proposal would make producer responsibility organisations publish fee schedules, with comments closing on 26 November 2026¹².