The Environment Minister today recognised the sterling efforts made to reduce waste here when he presented awards to the Northern Ireland winners of the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR).

Alex Attwood presented awards to six organisations in recognition of their innovation, good communication, and the potential for their waste reduction activities to be replicated on a much wider scale, with the ultimate aim of reducing overall waste.

The six winners included "Incredible Edible" from Cloughmills, Cross and Passion College in Ballycastle and Unicycle for their school uniform reuse project. A special "Jury's Favourite" award went to Graham Construction for their week of waste reduction projects.

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Funded by the Department of the Environment's Rethink Waste campaign, the worthy winners received a trophy made from scrap metal including cuff links and horse shoes, which was designed and made by Portadown artist Martin Medlow using reclaimed metal such as horseshoes, bicycle chains, candlesticks and even cufflinks.

The Minister said: "This is the first year that my Department has been involved in supporting the initiative and I'm delighted that so many organisations, groups and individuals not only took part, but also came up with such innovative and creative ideas for reducing waste.

"To have so many companies and groups making a commitment towards reducing waste in the long term is most encouraging, and I hope that the changes and initiatives which took place during the week will now become a part of daily life, with the long-term goal of substantially reducing our contributions to landfill. The aim should be for NI to be ‘a world’ leader in carbon emissions. The success of EWWR and the great work done helps towards this objective."

(CD/GK)