Bryson Recycling - Review of the Year

2021 was another busy year for Bryson Recycling. From high levels of recyclables collected and recycled locally, to one council contract closing and another contract win, to taking part in multiple community activities that allowed us to give back to our local communities - here are some of our main highlights and achievements from throughout the year.

RECYCLING STATS

• Over 59,000 tonnes of materials recycled across all our services.  
• Collected and processed recycling from 50% of homes in Northern Ireland.  
• Over 140,000 visits to our Recycling Centres in Donegal and Wales.
• Provided a garden waste collection service to over 22,000 households in Conwy.
• Employed over 320 staff across all our sites. 

RECYCLE THE RIGHT WAY

Collecting high quality materials that can be recycled locally remains our main focus, as this is better for the environment, the local economy and creates local jobs. To find out more about where our recycling goes please click here.

Our Wheelie Box model not only results in the collection of high quality recycling but also high quantities too - with 4 of the top 5 performing recycling schemes in Northern Ireland using Wheelie Boxes. 

To watch a short video about the benefits of our innovative approach to kerbside recycling, using Wheelie Boxes, click here.

CONTRACT UPDATES

Household Recycling Centre Contract in North Wales

We are delighted to be able to announce that we have won a contract to manage five Household Recycling Centres in Conwy County Borough Council and neighbouring Denbighshire County Council.

Through this new seven-year contract we will increase recycling rates, introduce more reuse activities and implement a local circular economy approach to recycling alongside a strong focus on social value.

We have been working with Conwy County Borough Council since 2014 when we won a contract to manage their Household Recycling Centres, and in 2020 we introduced a garden waste collection service for the local residents. This new contract, which is due to commence on 1st April 2022, will result in a significant increase in our operations in North Wales as we take on the management of three more sites in Denbighshire.

Kerbside Collection Contract – Armagh

Our kerbside recycling contract in Armagh came to an end in November this year. Since starting kerbside collections in the area back in 2002, we collected over 60,000 tonnes of material for recycling. We are proud to say that over 80% of what we collected was recycled in Northern Ireland, and over half of this went to companies in the local council area. We provided employment to a number of staff in Armagh, many of whom were with us for nearly 20 years. Whilst we are disappointed in the decision the Council made about its future recycling collection service, we wish them well for the future.

Investing in our Future 

We continue to invest in our future with the addition of new machinery and equipment at our Mallusk site. The first being 2 brand new RCVs which are already out doing the rounds in Antrim.

The second being a new AI-driven waste sorting robot which we introduced in our Materials Recover Facility with pioneering provider, Recycleye. We hope that this new technology will help us track and improve quality standards for key materials streams. 

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES

As a social enterprise we are keen to find ways to make a positive contribution to the local communities that we live and work in.

Recycling Rewards – Northern Ireland

Each year we join forces with three local recycling companies Huhtamaki, Cherry Pipes and Encirc to support a local charity.  For every tonne of paper, plastic and glass collected through our kerbside service, £1 is donated to a nominated charity.

This year’s charity partner was the Bryson Fund, which is delivered by the Bryson Charitable Group to help those severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our funding helped support a new pilot scheme called ‘Young Sparks’. This scheme encourages families to take the best advantage of learning opportunities at school, promotes the value of learning as a life skill, helps build routine to strengthen the whole family unit and promotes positive behaviour, resilience and confidence, enabling young people to reach their full potential.

7 year old Kyle took part in the project, which allowed him to embrace physical activities & coaching sessions, as well as helping to improve his reading skills through the weekly Young Readers group.

His mum Danielle said “Young Readers gave Kyle that extra bit of support outside of school with regards to his education. The Young Sparks team also contacted his school teacher to find out what he needed support with which was great. I must say overall it is a very good programme with the brilliant aim of helping families.”

Recycling Rewards – Wales  

Through our Recycling Rewards campaign in Wales we donate £1 to charity for every tonne of garden waste collected through our brown bin collection service in Conwy. Since we launched the campaign last year we have donated over £12,500 to local charities. Our most recent campaign involved getting Conwy residents to vote for their favourite charity which was extremely successful with over 4500 votes received. From the start of December 2020 to the end of September 2021, Bryson collected 6551 tonnes of garden waste, setting ourdonation amount at £6551. This went to three fantastic local charities – St David’s Hospice, Hope House and Incredible Edible.

St David’s Hospice deliver free, high-quality, specialist care to local people living with life-limiting illnesses in Conwy, Gwynedd and Anglesey. The Hospice received 48% of the votes resulting in a donation of £3144.

Hope House Children’s Hospice provide children’s palliative care ensuring every family facing the death of a child gets the very best care and support when and where they need it. They received 43% of the vote and a donation of £2817.

Incredible Edible galvanise local communities through growing and celebrating local food. They received 9% of the vote and a £590 donation.

School Bikes for Africa - Donegal

During October we collected old and unused bikes at our Recycling Centres in Donegal for Letterkenny Rotary Club’s School Bikes Africa Appeal. 60 bikes were collected and transported by the Irish Army to Loughan House, Co. Cavan one of the Irish Open Prison Centres, where the prisoners there will refurbish them prior to being shipped off to The Gambia. The bikes are then used by children to get to school giving them the chance of a better life. 

Charity Donations - Donegal

Each year, our team in Donegal collects valuable materials such as copper from scrap metal recycled at our six recycling centres and donates the money raised from selling this valuable material to charity.

This year we donated €1,550 to the National Council for the Blind Ireland and Donegal Hospice respectively. National Council for the Blind Ireland campaign for people throughout Ireland who are blind and vision-impaired to overcome the barriers that impede their independence and participation in society. Donegal Hospice offers a range of palliative care services for people with life-limiting illness across all of Donegal.

Connie Gallagher, General Manager at Bryson Recycling said “We are delighted to donate this money to two charities who make a great difference to the residents of Donegal. The campaign started eight years ago, allowing us to give something back to the local community where we provide our service. We want to thank everyone who has recycled with us and donated scrap metal resulting in our biggest donation to date. Thanks also to our staff put in a tireless effort over three days to separate the valuable metal. It has proven to be very worthwhile”.

We also collect wheelchairs and crutches at all our sites in Donegal and send them on to Haiti for reuse.

Community Compost Giveaways - Conwy 

We are now providing householders in Conwy with free compost at our local Recycling Centres. We can also provide larger quantities to local schools and community organisations in the area by request.

Green fingered pupils at Ysgol Porth y Felin recently got their hands on some free compost to help them improve their school gardens. Through this child led initiative the school provided each class with a budget and the pupils got to decide what they would grow. Some chose to grow flowers to brighten up the school grounds, while others will grow a range of vegetables which they plan to sell to parents to help raise funds for the school.

The compost provided by us was produced from garden waste collected from Conwy residents though their brown bin service. In the last year we have collected over 7,700 tonnes of garden waste, all of which is used to make nutrient rich compost at a local composting site based in Llanddulas.  

By providing free compost to Ysgol Porth y Felin, we have helped them cut the cost involved with improving their school gardens whilst also helping to improve the health and wellbeing of their pupils.

West Belfast Partnership Environmental Awards – Northern Ireland

We were proud to sponsor the Bryson Recycling Award for the fourth year running in this year’s West Belfast Partnership Environmental Awards. All Saints College won the award in recognition of their project “Making Our Communities a Better Place” where post lockdown pupils endeavoured to return to the streets and carry out a number of clean-ups that including litter picking and removing graffiti. They also separated the litter and recycled everything that they could.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

We are committed to providing a safe place to work for all our staff and continually look for ways to improve our approach to Health and Safety, so we were delighted to see an increase of 100% in near miss reporting. Reporting near misses has a vital part in reducing the risk of an incident resulting in an injury.