A COMPETITION which helped spread the word about the importance of recycling has been won by a resident in Cheltenham.

Margaret Holt won Gloucestershire’s Joint Waste Team’s ‘Be a Sport – Recycle’ summer competition and received a luxury hamper courtesy of The Midcounties Cooperative.

Margaret was selected at random for correctly answering that each England World Cup football strip was made from 18 recycled plastic bottles.

The competition was part of a wider campaign by the joint waste team to encourage residents throughout the county to recycle their drinks bottles and cans during a sport-packed summer.

Councillor Martin Quaile, chair of Gloucestershire’s Joint Waste Committee said: “We would like to thank all residents who entered the ‘Be a Sport - Recycle’ competition as well as the The Midcounties Cooperative which has supported us by promoting the campaign in their stores and for their generosity in providing such a splendid hamper.

“The focus of the campaign was to raise awareness of the amount of glass bottles and drinks cans which still end up in landfill, despite all local authorities in Gloucestershire having well-established kerbside recycling collection services for these items. We are constantly looking to minimise the amount of waste going to landfill and reduce costs to the tax payer and removing glass and cans will go a long way to achieving this aim.”

Elise Collins, store manager at The Midcounties Co-operative Warden Hill branch, Cheltenham where the prize-giving took place said: “As a co-operative, environmental responsibility is one of the core values on which our society is based. We were delighted to work with Gloucestershire’s Joint Waste Team on this initiative, which brought the important issue of recycling to the forefront of our community.”

It is believed that of the nine billion drinks cans sold annually only four billion will be recycled.

Each day in the UK 14 million glass bottles will end up in landfill.