PRESS RELEASE - Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
TUESDAY 14 September 2006

Yellow Woods Challenge 2006 a Great Success!

Craigston School is celebrating after scooping the ‘Gold Oak’ title and top prize of £300 in the Yellow Woods Challenge – the schools environmental competition run by Yellow Pages, working with the Woodland Trust and Western Isles Council.

Youngsters from Craigston School collected 140 old Yellow Pages directories for recycling, achieving the best recycling rate of 15.56 per pupil in the Western Isles.

As runners-up in the local competition, Carloway School won £200 and the Silver Birch certificate for recycling 15.14 per pupil. Shelibost Primary School came in third, receiving £100 and the Bronze Beech certificate for recycling 13.83.

In addition to the headline prizes, Stornoway Primary School won a bonus prize of £100 for collecting the most in total in this year’s Challenge. All participating schools will now join around 1,800 others in the Yellow Woods Challenge 2006 UK Finals, where schools can win cash prizes of up to £2,000.

For every pound awarded to schools, Yellow Pages gives a matching pound to the Woodland Trust’s ‘Tree For All’ campaign, which aims to plant a tree for every child in the UK. In support of this, native tree saplings have been awarded to the top three recycling schools and to Knock School, Lewis Independent Christian School and Balallan Primary School for achieving 4th, 5th and 6th place in the local Yellow Woods Challenge.

Mairi Macsween, Stornoway Primary PTA said: “The pupils’ response to the Yellow Woods Challenge has been fantastic. We are hoping to plant our native tree saplings around the school grounds”.

Sharon Mackinnon, Project Officer, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, said: “I’d like to thank all the schoolchildren, teachers and communities that took on the Yellow Woods Challenge and made it such a success. 4611 old Yellow Pages directories were collected in total by the Western Isles Schools and are now been recycled into compost at the new Creed Park Environmental Centre in Stornoway.

Richard Duggleby, head of external relations at Yell, the publisher of Yellow Pages, said: “This is a great achievement by schools in Western Isles and shows how interested children are in recycling and looking after the environment. We couldn’t run the Challenge without the local authority and recycling company and I thank them for their continued support and commitment.”

For further information about the Yellow Woods Challenge and the Tree For All campaign, visit: www.yellow-woods.co.uk or contact Sharon Mackinnon on the Waste Aware Helpline on 01851 709 900.