Bryson began its first recycling project in 1993 with the Cash for Cans scheme where we encouraged people to recycle aluminium drinks cans by providing accessible collection points at locations such as supermarkets where they could be exchanged for cash. This soon spread across Northern Ireland with many youth and community groups and, business and individuals participating in the scheme. Between 1993 and 1999 over 6 million cans were collected each year.

Eric Randall our story — **Image caption:** Eric Randall, our founder, baling cans collected through the Cash for Cans scheme in 1993.

With changes in legislation and a realisation that we need to be more environmentally aware, councils were looking for ways to get more of their residents recycling. In 2001 we set up a pilot kerbside recycling programme in partnership with Belfast City Council, Ards Borough Council and Castlereagh Borough Council. We provided kerbside boxes to 8000 households to collect paper, glass bottles and jars, food and drinks cans, plastic bottles, foil, textiles and old hand tools. Weekly collections were made using electric vehicles.

**Image caption:** Pedestrian controlled vehicle collecting in the Willowfield area of Belfast.

In 2003 we started collecting recyclables from schools and this service grew to become our commercial service. We stopped providing this service in 2020 as we continued to focus on the provision of household services.

Commercial collection — **Image caption:** Helping businesses and schools cut their waste with regular recycling collections.

It was during 2004 and 2005 that Bryson Recycling went through a very substantial period of growth, thanks to winning a number of local authority contracts in quick succession. Our number of employees jumped from 30 to over 200 in 12 months and we relocated our operations to Mallusk, as we rolled our kerbside box service and built a state of the art Material Recovery Facilty (MRF) to process recyclables collected from households in recycling bins.

**Image caption:** Our MRF in Mallusk where we process materials collected mixed (co-mingled) in recycling bins.

In 2012 and 2013 we won our first contracts outside Northern Ireland. The first was with Donegal County Council to manage six Recycling Centres in Ireland. The second was with Conwy County Borough Council to manage two Recycling Centres in North Wales.

Donegal recycling centre — **Image caption:** One of our Recycling Centres in Letterkenny, County Donegal.

In 2019 we won a contract with Conwy County Borough Council to provide a garden waste collection service to households in the areas on a subscription basis.

Conwy Garden Waste — **Image caption:** Garden Waste Collection Service in Conwy

Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council awarded us a contract in 2020 to collect refuse bins from 22,000 households in the Antrim area. In 2023 we won a further contract with the council to provide a refuse collection service to all 60,000 households across the whole Borough.

In 2022 we took over the management of 3 additional Recycling Centres in North Wales, through a contract with Denbighshire County Council.

In 2018, we opened our first Reuse Shop in partnership with Conwy County Borough Council and St David's Hospice. It is located at our Recycling Centre in Mochdre in North Wales. In 2022, we opened our second Reuse Shop at our Rhyl Recycling Centre in partnership with Denbighshire County Council and St David's Hospice.

Bryson recycling is now the largest social enterprise recycler in the UK. We collect and process materials collected from over 50% of homes in Northern Ireland, operate 11 recycling centres in Donegal and Wales, run two reuse shops and provide collection services for garden and residual waste.

Our Story