SCHOOLS have been racing to sign up for Green Theatre, a new drama project designed to help the environment.

More than 20 applications have been made for the 12 school places available in the drama workshops, which will seek to teach children about recycling in a fun and interactive way.

Green Theatre is being funded with £6,000 won by Bury after local people achieved third place in the Race to Recycle Awards 2003 for improving the town's paper recycling rate by a 29 per cent. The money came from UPM Shotton Paper, the UK's largest paper recycler and organiser of the awards, to be spent on a community or environmental project.

The money will be used by Bury's Community Waste Initiative, which is managed by Groundwork. A theatre group will go into each school for one day to work with a class of up to 30 pupils, rehearsing and producing a play with a recycling and waste theme, which will then be performed to the rest of the school.

Councillor Stella Smith, executive member for environment and transport, said: "This is a great way to empower our young people, teaching them the vital importance of waste minimisation and recycling.

"Green Theatre will help to spread the message through schools and to the wider community, which is exactly what Race to Recycle is all about."

New figures from UPM Shotton Paper for Race to Recycle 2004 show that Bury is again in third place, with a projected 19 per cent increase in paper recycling.

Shotton Paper buys the old papers which people leave in their kerbside green bags, and recycles them into newsprint which it sells back to the newspaper industry.