Bryson Recycling has said Mid and East Antrim Borough Council could receive more than £3m in Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs funding and make annual savings of potentially £3m if it adopted a kerbside-sort recycling system similar to that used by Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council.

The charity's director, Katy Fulton, said the estimate was based on combining kerbside-sort recycling with reduced residual waste capacity. She said the system in Antrim and Newtownabbey was delivering and should serve as a signal to Mid and East Antrim. The figures are Bryson Recycling's own estimates and have not been confirmed as funding allocations or independently verified savings.

Mid and East Antrim is preparing to introduce 240-litre blue wheelie bins for households in Ballymena and Carrickfergus and surrounding areas next year, replacing existing recycling boxes. Residents in the Larne area will keep their current blue bins. Blue bin collections will be fortnightly. The move reverses earlier plans for a uniform triple-stack recycling box system across the borough.

Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council introduced triple-stack recycling boxes to approximately 23,000 households in Antrim, Randalstown, Crumlin, Templepatrick and Toomebridge last autumn. The change replaced the blue bin system in those areas and reduced standard black bin capacity from 240 litres to 180 litres. Brown bins were retained for food and garden waste. The expansion followed £2.6 million in match funding from DAERA. The triple-stack system has operated in Newtownabbey since 2016, when the council became the first in Northern Ireland to introduce weekly kerbside-sort recycling collections for approximately 37,000 households.

Bryson Recycling reported a 27% increase in recycling collected in the former Antrim council area, with more than 300 additional tonnes gathered in the first six months to June. It estimated an 18% reduction in residual waste placed in black bins, with anticipated annual savings of £1.2 million. The charity said more than 70% of materials it collects can now be recycled within Northern Ireland.

Ms Fulton reported contamination rates of approximately 15% in blue bins compared with 0.1% in wheelie boxes. She said the direction of travel in Northern Ireland should be separation of waste and that keeping glass separate was particularly important so it could be recycled locally rather than exported to Europe. Antrim and Newtownabbey councillors were recently told that improved recovered paper quality meant waste paper from the borough was no longer shipped to Pakistan and was instead processed in Lurgan.

At Bryson Recycling's Mallusk processing facility, soiled nappies are among the most common contaminants found in blue bins. Other items recently identified included part of a child's car seat, wood, bubble wrap, a pillow and plastic bags. Ms Fulton said battery fires posed a major risk to the site and that lorry loads are weighed on arrival. Mixed recycling is placed on conveyor belts where workers manually remove unsuitable items.

In correspondence to Bryson Recycling's Keep Recycling Local campaign, Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Andrew Muir said the forthcoming Northern Ireland Resources and Waste Strategy would place waste prevention and improvements in the quantity and quality of recycling at its core. He said the strategy strongly supports greater separation of recyclable materials and aligns with the wider direction of travel across the UK.

Mid and East Antrim Borough Council has previously defended its decision to adopt a co-mingled system. Interim chief executive Valerie Watts said officers researched which councils had the highest recycling rates in Northern Ireland and England before elected members resolved to change the collection model. She said the highest performing councils consistently used the single bin co-mingled system and the council was confident it was the only option for achieving government recycling targets.

Mid and East Antrim Borough Council has been asked to comment on Bryson Recycling's latest claims.