Pupils Urge Western Isles Households To Go Green With Yellow Pages

May 7, 2008

Kirk posing with Darrah (Laxdale School) & Sharon

Schoolchildren across the Western Isles 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 with the Woodland Trust and Western Isles Council, Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar.

Over the next few weeks, all 41 schools across the Western Isles will be asking residents to give them their old Yellow Pages directory when the new 2008/09 directory is delivered around May 31 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 cash prizes from Yellow Pages in the recycling competition.

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 Western Isles in a worthwhile environmental activity. At the end of the competition, the old Yellow Pages directories will be recycled at the Creed Recycling Park, Lochs Road.”

Sharon Mackinnon, community awareness officer at Western Isles Council, 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 more than two million old Yellow Pages directories and helped raise more than £330,000 for the Woodland Trust.