PEOPLE in the Launceston area will soon have the opportunity to win up to £100 in high street vouchers just by putting out their recycling.

The Cornwall Council Waste Awareness Team is bringing its award winning Big Green Ticket scheme to Launceston to encourage more people to reuse materials, to use the recycling service and reward those already recycling.

Residents can place numbered tickets in recycling bags to be collected from the kerbside and then two winning tickets will be randomly selected each week. The Big Green Ticket scheme is part of a greater recycling and reuse awareness campaign that will visit schools, shops and businesses in the area for a six-week period.

The Waste Awareness Team arrived in Launceston this week (Monday) and will be there until August 14 to concentrate efforts on the area. A similar approach taken in the St Austell and St Blazey area earlier this year saw a significant increase in recycling rates and led to the team being awarded the Best Awareness Campaign award in the country at the Plant and Waste Recycling awards.

Julian German, Cornwall Council Cabinet Member for Waste Management, said: "We need more people to recycle and what better way than by providing a financial incentive. The benefits of recycling are clear – the less waste that has to be taken to landfill, the lower the cost to the council taxpayer. With the Big Green Ticket competition some lucky people will be able to get an immediate financial reward."

Esther O'Bearagh, Waste Awareness and Education Manager, said: "We will be out and about in shops, schools and businesses all over Launceston for the next month talking to people and trying to make it as easy as possible for people to recycle. It worked really well in St Austell and St Blazey and we are hoping for a similar response from people here."

Big green tickets can be collected from the Waste Awareness Team, from Launceston Library or from the Council One Stop Shop in the Market House Arcade.

People using the kerbside recycling service keep the top part of the ticket and put it in their blue recycling bag (for paper) when they put it out for their fortnightly collection.

The bottom part of the ticket, with the residents' contact details is returned to the Waste Awareness Team. Residents' names and contact details will only be used for the purposes of the draw. The first prize will be £100 of high street vouchers and the second prize is £50 worth of vouchers which can be used at many leading shops.

The recycling collection vehicles take the bags to the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) at Bodmin where they are scanned and sorted. If residents use the recycling banks or collective recycling bins at multi-occupancy properties instead of the kerbside recycling service, they can still enter the competition because the contents of these are also taken to the MRF at Bodmin.