FOUR Barnsley children have been announced as winners in a council competition to design the side of Barnsley’s bin lorries.

School children from across the borough were tasked with designing drawings encouraging residents to recycle and raise awareness of what items go in each bin as part of our Everybody Think recycling campaign.

Designs drawn by Rosa from Milefield Primary School in Grimethorpe, Bella from Shafton Primary School, Megan from Greenfield Primary School in Hoyland and Evelyn from Wombwell Park Street Primary will adorn the side of four bin lorries.

The four winners were chosen by a judging panel including Barnsley Mayor Coun Mick Stowe, Mayoress Elaine Stowe and Cabinet Spokesperson for Environment and Highways Coun James Higginbottom.

Coun Stowe said: "It’s been a pleasure to be involved in the judging for this competition and it’s great to see so many varied entries from across the borough. The standard of entries was brilliant, leaving us with a tough choice to choose the four winners, but our choices were all eye-catching, fit the brief perfectly and were all very creative.

“I’d like to congratulate Rosa, Bella, Megan and Evelyn on winning and I look forward to seeing their designs on the side of our lorries.”

Cabinet Spokesperson for Environment and Highways Coun James Higginbottom said:

“We’re really pleased to have had so many fantastic entries from local schools. All of the designs who entered were brilliant and I can't wait to see the winning designs in place on the side of our bin lorries in the very near future.

“This competition is a great way for us to engage with children across Barnsley and instil in them the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling our waste.

"Together we can all play our part in building the cleaner, greener and more sustainable Barnsley we can all be proud to call home."

The competition was part of a wider campaign to tackle contamination in our recycling bins across the borough.

Currently six per cent of recycling collections contain some form of contamination from people placing the wrong things in their bins. The main culprits of contamination are takeaway boxes containing food waste and nappies in the blue bin.

Coun James Higginbottom, Cabinet Spokesperson for Environment and Highways said: “It’s important that our residents know what can and can’t go in their recycling bins so we can minimise the amount of contamination we see in our recycling collections.

“Through this competition and the wider campaign tackling contamination, we hope to raise awareness of what items can and can’t be recycled in our borough.

“By doing so, we hope to improve our current recycling rate of 47% and create a cleaner, greener Barnsley.”