08 : 53 am |9th September 2010

News

BRYSON HOUSE RECYCLING GOES FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

18/11/2004

Bryson House Recycling, an innovative social enterprise partnership between Bryson House and ECT, will soon be helping a quarter of homes in Northern Ireland recycle up to 40% of their rubbish.

Bryson House Recycling has been appointed by Ballymena Borough Council and Newtownabbey Borough Council in a joint contract, and Belfast City Council in a second contract, to provide doorstep recycling services to nearly 105,000 households. The service will collect a wide range of materials, such as glass, cans, textiles and foil. This is good news for the environment as in Northern Ireland one million tonnes of household rubbish ends up in landfill each year.

Eric Randall, Director of Recycling for Bryson House Recycling, says: ‘Our service is designed to make it as easy as possible for residents to recycle from home, not only in terms of how materials are collected, but also through excellent customer service and support. We are delighted we can now help even more homes in Northern Ireland make a positive impact on the environment.’

News of these new contracts comes hot on the heels of Banbridge and Armagh Council’s recent decision to appoint Bryson House Recycling to provide its doorstep recycling services. The organisation currently provides its service to 65,000 households in Northern Ireland; this will increase to 170,000 following the extension, approximately 25% of homes in Northern Ireland. Following the roll out of the scheme an estimated 15,000 tonnes of material will be collected for recycling annually, enough to fill three quarters of a million wheelie bins.

Staring in January, the new recycling contracts are worth a total of £4.2million. Collections will be borough-wide in the Ballymena and Newtownabbey areas, while in Belfast the scheme will be introduced initially to 25,000 households in the city centre, increasing to 50,000. Further details on how the scheme will operate will be supplied directly to households.
Councillor Ivan Hunter, Chair of the Environment Committee, Newtownabbey Borough Council, comments: ‘We are delighted to be working in partnership with Bryson House Recycling to deliver doorstep recycling services to all residents. We are really keen to get households into the recycling habit.’
‘We were happy to accept Bryson House Recycling’s tender for this initiative because we felt they displayed a strong commitment to recycling,’ adds Councillor Roy Gillespie, Chair of the Environmental Services Committee, Ballymena Borough Council. ‘We are confident households will receive an efficient and easy to use service’.
Councillor Jim Clarke, Chairman, Health and Environmental Services Committee, Belfast City Council comments: ‘By making sure they recycle their household waste, residents in Belfast really can make a difference to the environment. Initially this service will only be available to 25,000 homes in the city centre but we are hoping to roll it out to 50,000, if the initial phase is successful.’

Some recycling facts and figures:
-Steel is the world’s most recycled packaging material with 350 million tonnes being recycled each year.
-In Northern Ireland each person uses around 95 plastic bottles every year.
-Plastic bottles can be recycled into a range of products including clothing, pillows, carpet and garden furniture.
-For every tonne of paper recycled, 17 trees are saved.
-Recycling paper rather than making it from raw materials uses 70% less energy and causes 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution.
-Over 70% of drinks cans are made from aluminium. Around 600million are used in Northern Ireland every year, but only a small fraction are recycled.
-An estimated £1million worth of aluminium is thrown away in Northern Ireland annually.
-Glass is 100% recyclable and in the UK, we throw away 200 glass bottles and jars every minute.

ECT is one of the UK’s leading social enterprises providing a range of community services including recycling and transport. Bryson House is Northern Ireland’s oldest community based charity.

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For further information please contact Claire McCallum, Marketing and Promotions Manager, Bryson House Recycling on 02890 401 070 or Debi Clay, Account Manager, Upward Curve PR on 0208 241 7500

Notes to Editor
1. Bryson House has been involved in recycling since 1993, initially setting up a subsidiary company to recycle aluminium cans. Bryson House Recycling was formed as a joint venture in July 2003 between Northern Ireland’s oldest charity, Bryson House, and the UK’s largest community recycling organisation, ECT, to provide recycling services across several council areas in Northern Ireland.

2. Formed in 1979, ECT has grown into a leading social enterprise, providing a range of high quality services for the community. With a turnover of £22million, its core services include recycling, community transport, bus services and engineering. ECT employs more than 600 staff and is the UK’s largest community recycling organisation serving more than 2.75 million people in partnership with 16 local authorities. ECT is committed to incorporating social responsibility, environmental sustainability and economic viability into all that it does.

3. The charity Bryson House has a track record of almost 100 hundred years of successful social policy development. With more than 360 employees and an annual turnover of £8.3million, the charity operates more than 27 schemes across Northern Ireland and celebrates its centenary in 2006. With a focus on social policy development, in addition to its recycling operations the charity has pioneered many innovative programmes across the province in some of the most socially deprived areas, delivering social care programmes, helping families in crisis, training people for employment, creating new jobs, providing affordable warmth, and improving local environments.