Pupils urge Vale residents to go green with their Yellow
Pages
Schoolchildren across the Vale of Glamorgan are encouraging
residents to help them win cash prizes and raise money to plant
native trees - simply by handing over their old Yellow Pages
directory for recycling.
The youngsters are participating in the Yellow Woods Challenge –
a simple, educational and fun environmental campaign run by Yellow
Pages, working in partnership with the Woodland Trust and The Vale
of Glamorgan Council.
During December and January, 38 schools in the Vale will be
asking residents to give them their old Yellow Pages directory when
the new 2007/08 directory is delivered and help them win the local
recycling competition. Schools that collect the highest number of
old directories per pupil will be awarded a share of £700-worth of
cash prizes from Yellow Pages in the recycling competition.
St Helen's Roman Catholic Junior School in Barry won
last year's competition in the Vale by collecting a fantastic 27
directories per pupil.
For every pound Yellow Pages awards to schools for recycling old
directories, they will give a matching pound to the Woodland Trust.
The money will be used to support the charity’s ‘Tree for all’
campaign - the most ambitious children's tree-planting project ever
launched in the UK, which aims to plant 12 million trees by
2009.
Janice Hix, corporate partnerships manager at the Woodland
Trust, said: “What’s great about the challenge is that children
experience first-hand how they can help the environment. Getting
kids excited about trees, together with the animals and
creepy-crawlies that woodland supports, is so important if we are
to ensure our green spaces are protected now so that everyone can
enjoy them in the future.”
Free curriculum-linked resources, created especially for the
challenge, are given to every participating school. Kirk, the
campaign mascot, features on all the activities and helps educate
pupils about the importance of recycling, woodland conservation and
caring for the environment.
Richard Duggleby, head of external relations at Yell, the
publisher of Yellow Pages directories, said: “The Yellow Woods
Challenge is a simple and fun way of engaging schoolchildren and
local residents of the Vale of Glamorgan in a worthwhile
environmental activity. At the end of the competition, the old
Yellow Pages directories will go to Greenwoods, a South Wales
company.”
Sam Harrison, the Vale Council's waste awareness officer, said:
“Recycling not only saves valuable landfill space but also reduces
the amount of energy needed to manufacture new products. By taking
part in the Yellow Woods Challenge, these pupils are learning very
important environmental issues at an early age – a great start for
our next generation of recyclers!”
Since the Yellow Woods Challenge began in September 2002,
participating schools across the UK have helped recycle 1.8 million
old Yellow Pages directories and helped raise £290,000 for the
Woodland Trust.
The Yellow Woods Challenge closes locally on January 25th 2008.
For more information about the challenge, visit www.yellow-woods.co.uk. For
further details about the participating local schools, waste
minimisation, recycling, home composting, and the kerbside garden
waste collection service in the Vale, please contact visible
services on 029 2067 3000, or e-mail visible@valeofglamorgan.gov.uk.
Meanwhile, to find out more about the Woodland Trust and climate
change, visit www.woodland-trust.org.uk.
Caption: The Yellow Pages mascot 'Kirk' and the
Vale of Glamorgan Mayor, Cllr Clive Williams, and Mayoress Gwyneth
Williams, launched this year's Yellow Woods Challenge at St Helen's
Roman Catholic Junior School in Barry. The school won last year's
competition by collecting 27 directories per pupil.
08/12/2007