Lord Mayor welcomes 'Brighter' Belfast recycling

Belfast city centre today was a 'sunny' place for a time as local schoolchildren were praised by Lord Mayor Martin Morgan for ‘doing their bit’ for the ‘Brighter Belfast’ waste recycling initiative.

Though the ‘sun’, which appeared on the front lawn of City Hall, was made out of dozens of old copies of the ‘Yellow Pages’, collected by local children as part of a national competition.

Pupils from primary schools in Belfast collected thousands of out-of-date directories in just three weeks, as part of Belfast City Council’s contribution to the national Yellow Woods Challenge, organized by the Directory Recycling Scheme and the Woodland Trust in association with Yellow Pages.

The prizes rewarded those schools whose pupils had collected, per head, the most directories as part of this year’s initiative.

Councillor Morgan said: “Belfast City Council is committed to promoting and encouraging recycling at all levels of society, and the education of our young people about the benefits of recycling is an important step along the road to fulfilling this commitment. By combining education with fun and tangible rewards, the Yellow Woods Challenge is a very exciting competition and the Council is delighted that teachers and pupils once again have shown such enthusiasm, and indeed surpassed the numbers of directories recycled last year."

Top of the pile were the 78 pupils of Scoil an Droichid, the Irish-language school based in Cooke Street in south Belfast, who collected 784 old directories. The school received a ‘Gold Oak’ award and a £300 cash prize, to be spent on improving the school’s environment, from competition sponsors, Yellow Pages. There also was a special prize for Faolan McCambridge, who single-handedly collected no fewer than 175 old directories.

In second place was Fullerton House Primary School, the preparatory department for Methodist College Belfast. The 240 pupils collected 872 directories and for their efforts received a ‘Silver Birch’ award and £200.

Cliftonville Primary School came third, receiving a ‘Bronze Beech’ award and £100.

The participating schools also received free educational materials, containing fun environmental activities to teach children about recycling and woodland conservation.

The directories collected by the schools which participated in the competition will be recycled into egg boxes by Belfast City Council’s contractors.

(SP)