The UK's largest community recycling organisation, ECT currently serves over 1 million households in the UK, collecting about 110,000 tonnes of materials each year. After expanding outside its London origins, ECT now believes there are potential opportunities for local authority contracts in Northern Ireland, where councils have to get from the current 6% household waste recycling rate to a target of 25% by 2005.
ECT has joined forces with Belfast-based Bryson House, a community group with a 6.5 million turnover, in order to benefit from local knowledge as it pursues contracts in the province. The partnership with ECT is to be called Bryson House Recycling.
Bryson House has carried out recycling activities since and 1993, introducing kerbside collections for 8,000 households in 2001, which increased to nearly 30,000 homes from June 2003. The link-up with ECT aims to expand this to more than 100,000 households within two years.
The group currently works with six local authorities, Antrim, Armagh, Banbridge, Belfast, Carrickfergus and Castlereagh and runs two depots, one in Castlereagh and the other in Banbridge.
A spokesperson told letsrecycle.com that the partnership has already begun to pitch to local authorities for contracts to expand the kerbside services in Northern Ireland.
Nick McCafferty, chair of Bryson House Recycling, said: “By providing initiatives such as doorstep collection services for recyclable goods we can make it easy for residents to recycle up to 35 % of their rubbish. With Northern Ireland needing to achieve recycling rates of 25% by 2005 this means that local authorities should be able to exceed their targets years ahead of schedule.”
Expertise
Stephen Sears, chief executive of the ECT Group, said: “Bryson House Recycling will combine our industry expertise and track record of success in providing recycling services to local authorities throughout the UK with Bryson House’s local knowledge and track record of providing community-based services.”
He added: “This combination, together with our shared values and record of innovation will enable us to offer residents and local authorities first class doorstep recycling services that will make it easy for residents to recycle from home. Our new partnership with Bryson House shows that community recycling is going from strength to strength and we are delighted to be able to provide a range of new services that will help Northern Ireland meet its statutory recycling targets.”
The nature of the new collections will depend on the requirement of the local authority contracts, but ECT already has long-term contracts to supply material to Aylesford Newsprint, British Glass Recycling and AMG.
Subscribe for free