Barry school kids get gold for going green

Pupils and staff at St Helen’s RC Junior School in Barry are enjoying a new green accolade - Yellow Pages Recycling Champions for Wales 2009.

St Helen’s, who came top in the medium schools category, are also looking forward to spending a well-earned £1,000 prize money.

The environmental campaign for schools is run by Yellow Pages working in partnership with the Woodland Trust and, locally, the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

The school’s 202 pupils recycled a massive 1,831 Yellow Pages directories when the new ones were delivered last year - equivalent to an impressive 9.06 old directories per pupil.

Fourteen local authorities across Wales ran the Yellow Woods Challenge, involving a total of 495 schools and 99,156 pupils. The recycling scores from local heats were entered into the Wales finals and resulted in success for St Helen’s.

St Helen’s headteacher Gavin Russ said: "We are so proud to be Welsh winners in this competition. I’d like to thank our local community who helped us collect so many Yellow Pages. The school eco-committee is currently helping to decide how to spend the prize money."

Congratulating the school on their achievement, Vale councillor Geoff Cox, cabinet member for visible and building services, said: "Taking the national title is a fantastic achievement for St Helen’s Junior School. The council’s ‘What’s in your bin?’ campaign aims to get us all reducing, reusing and recycling. The pupils and staff at this school, and their community, are shining examples of great local action."

For every pound awarded to schools in prize money, Yellow Pages has donated a matching pound to the Woodland Trust’s children’s tree planting campaign, ‘Trees For All.’

Kimberley Watts-Fitzsimmons, corporate responsibility manager at Yell, the publisher of Yellow Pages directories, said: "It’s a great pleasure to reward the winning schools for their outstanding achievements. I’d also like to thank all the schools and councils in Wales who always take the competition to heart. Together they’ve made a massive contribution towards the environment."

The Yellow Woods Challenge is undergoing a major strategic review and will relaunch in summer 2010 - for more information visit www.yellow-woods.co.uk.