It's easy to look back fondly on the old days when recycling was sexy and everyone was urged to Be A Good Sort, but there's no denying the amount of stuff diverted from disposal through the program has increased substantially since the late 1980s.
The new collection methods where everything is dumped into one container were hailed as increasing convenience for the poor beleaguered resident, although one suspects lower collection costs were the real driver. And there is no question they increased volumes. Stewardship Ontario talks in almost giddy terms in its latest report about "overwhelming success" of the program, having surpassed 60% diversion. 
Where I come from six out of 10 is not bad, but hardly "overwhelming." Nine out of 10 would be overwhelming. Eight out of 10 would be excellent. Seven out of 10 would be good, but with room for improvement after 20 years. Six out of 10? I'm sorry. I am not overwhelmed.
So let's not get too paranoid here about making changes.
And if I may continue the report card metaphor, after 20 years I would be looking for signs that things are improving, with good prospects, and I'd be looking a lot more closely at the end uses of the materials collected. It shouldn't be hard to increase the  number of tonnes recycled every year, given an increasing  population and, until recently, a booming economy. That just means people are buying a lot of stuff (and the increasing disposal tonnages tell a similar story).
If you look at the revenues being paid for the blue box materials today, it is clear the reduced quality is having an impact on the bottom line. We're further away today  than we have ever been from having the program be self-sustaining.
We also need to be taking a look at all the reasons for recycling we gave to our residents when we first asked them to separate their wastes 20 years ago. I am not sure there was too much talk of convenience, but there was a lot of talk about energy savings, maximizing the intrinsic value of the materials and recycling something into something of equal value, not grinding it up and using it for landfill cover, or pulping the heck out of it and landfilling it into a plastic picnic table.
If the private sector can turn that around, municipalities should hand over the keys and get ready to lecture industry about efficiency (and convenience), if they are so inclined.

By Jay Arthur

After years of subsidizing industry for the cost of the blue box program, you might think Ontario's municipalities couldn't wait to hand it over to someone else. Apparently not.
In their response to the latest vision for the future of the blue box and related waste services, the municipalities are certainly supportive of the thrust to 100% industry responsibility, but they don't seem to be in too much of the hurry to relinquish control of the program.
In its February 1 submission to the Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) says it's worried the "flexibility" industry has been calling for could lead to "fragmentation of the collection systems."
It does however, support the kind of flexibility that would give municipalities an opportunity to participate in the new system on a contract basis. That may make sense in places where staff are doing the work and they are keen to ensure that is maintained, but most programs contract out their operations. 
AMO says it is concerned that compromising convenience and accessibility could lead to "resident confusion" and "diminished program participation."
If you look at the high recycling rates for some of the more well-known blue box material like newspapers and cans, versus the rather poor rates for other materials, it's pretty clear there is already a substantial amount of resident confusion out there.
Even though many programs have been accepting plastics other than bottle and jugs for many years now, their recovery rates are still very low. It's the same for tetra paks and pie plates.
AMO seems to think that hanging on to the "convenience" of the current system is vital. I'm not so sure. Has anyone considered the possibility, I wonder, that Ontario programs have spent so much time trying to make everything waste-related in their residents' lives convenient that many of them have forgotten how to "do the right thing"?