Starting in the fall of 2026, residents in Burlington, Ontario, who participated in the 2025 automated collection expansion can begin exchanging their large wheeled garbage carts for a smaller size. This program allows eligible households to swap the standard 240-litre bin for a more manageable 120-litre option through the Halton Region website.
The move follows feedback from the community where some residents found the larger bins difficult to move, especially for seniors. Approximately 5,500 households in Wards 1, 2, 4, and 6 received these new carts in June 2025 as part of an expansion of the program to 18,000 homes across Halton Region.
The wheeled cart program first started as a demonstration project in 2023 with about 1,850 homes and was supported or viewed neutrally by 85 percent of participants. Halton Region notes the goal of the program is to make waste collection cleaner and safer for workers by using automated trucks.
Residents who have trouble moving any size of cart due to health or mobility reasons can contact the region by calling 311 to ask for help. While the region handles garbage, the residential blue box program has been run by Circular Materials Ontario since January 1, 2026.
Every household that gets municipal waste pickup is allowed one wheeled cart. The program is expected to reach all remaining homes in the area by 2027.
