Bryson Recycling Driving Change in the War on Waste

·        Bryson collects and processes 800,000 plastic items daily

·        Circular economy approach sustains 1000 jobs in NI

·        Ambitions to add £150m to the local economy through the Bryson Model

Bryson Recycling has pledged to stay at the forefront of tackling waste as it celebrates its 25th year in business this week (26th September 2018).

Recently awarded UK Social Enterprise of The Year, Bryson Recycling’s innovative service uses products that they brought to the marketplace, the Kerb-Sort vehicle and Wheelie Box, to collect a wide range of recyclable items from home whilst maintaining their quality. The “Bryson Model” is changing the way domestic recycling services are carried out both here in Northern Ireland and across the UK, with their approach now being used to deliver services to over 1.8 million households.

Bryson started recycling in 1993 with the Cash for Cans scheme that was operated by three Government funded trainees and is now the largest social enterprise recycler in the UK, employing over 280 staff. The company, that delivers a wide range of recycling services across Northern Ireland, Donegal and Wales, has recycled over 675,000 tonnes of materials during their 25 years in business, and during this time they have seen many changes in the types of waste that households recycle. The most recent trend has been an increase in plastics and in the last year alone they have processed over 212 million plastic items.

Click here to view photos from the event.

Speaking at the company’s 25th Anniversary Event, Eric Randall, Director at Bryson Recycling said:

“Homeowners are more aware of the damage that plastic products are causing to the environment. This year we have experienced a huge increase in the number of plastic items across our recycling services; we are now processing an extra 200,000 plastic items each day at our Mallusk site. This increased awareness about plastics, largely due to the shocking images showing the impact of plastics in our seas in David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, has encouraged people to recycle more and offered us the opportunity to boost recycling rates.

Bryson Recycling have championed the local circular economy approach to recycling in Northern Ireland with over 80% of materials collected going to local  reprocessing companies, which sustains around 1000 jobs locally. Northern Irish Industry leaders Huhtamaki, Cherry Pipes and Encirc all reprocess materials collected by Bryson.

This collaborative approach with three reprocessors and a number of Councils adds over £100m every year to the NI economy and Bryson has ambitions to increase this by a further 50% in coming years.

Eric adds; “The simple reality is that waste impacts everyone and the environment. Our model ensures good environmental outcomes by ensuring that goods are recycled locally, livelihoods are supported and the economy continues to grow.

“The future of recycling must focus on the quality of material collected and their local economic value. The impact of our model stretches beyond Northern Ireland. With many areas across the UK adopting it.  We are confident recycling will be taken taken to the next level and Bryson will continue to champion and shape the local circular economy model”.

About Bryson Recycling

• Bryson Recycling began recycling in 1993 with the launch of the still popular Cash for Cans service.
• We currently process recyclables collected from 60 percent of NI homes.
• We currently deliver our kerbside box / wheelie box service to over 170,000 households in five council areas: Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon, Mid and East Antrim, Belfast, Lisburn and Castlereagh and Antrim and Newtownabbey.  
• We also operate a MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) which is used to sort materials collected co-mingled in wheeled bins from approximately 300,000 houses in the arc21 region (Antrim and Newtownabbey, Ards and North Down, Belfast, Lisburn and Castlereagh, Newry, Mourne and Down, Mid and East Antrim).
• Our commercial collection service was launched in 2003, and we currently collect recyclables from over 500 businesses and schools.
• We manage six recycling centres for Donegal County Council located at Letterkenny Stranorlar, Milford, Carndonagh, Laghey and Dungloe, and two recycling centres in North Wales for Conwy County Borough Council.
• Last year we collected over 64,000 tonnes of materials for recycling across all our services and our turnover was over £13.5 million.
• We currently employ over 280 members of staff.