BURNLEY'S new green champion today pledged she would ensure people in the borough learnt more about environmental issues.

Sarah Catterall, 31, has taken on the new role of being Burnley Council's rethinking waste officer, based at Padiham Town Hall.

Her new job will involve encouraging people of all ages to cut down on the amount of waste that needs dumping at landfill sites.

The council aims to beat a target of recycling 18 per cent of its waste by 2006.

Sarah worked in customer services for Royal Mail until just over a year ago, but gave up her career there to pursue her environmental interests.

She is currently studying at university for a Master's degree in waste management.

Sarah said: "I've always been interested in the environment and how we can protect it. I wanted a complete change of career and working to promote recycling seemed an obvious choice."

Her new job will entail visits to schools, businesses and other organisations to give out advice and answer questions to help people recycle more.

She will have to highlight to the different groups the importance of recycling as the amount of space at landfill sites starts to get smaller.

She will also be hoping to persuade them to start doing that little bit more to help the environment.

She said: "Often people just need a little help to enable them to recycle more. They need to know the answers to little niggling questions, like whether you can leave tops on bottles.

"I want to help people fit recycling into their day-to-day lives and to realise you don't always have to make big changes to be making a difference to the environment.

"If people learn where the recycling points are and take some waste when they are passing them, then that makes a difference.

"There are also things people can do when they are shopping, such as reusing carrier bags and buying things with less packaging.

"I'm such a firm believer in recycling I just want to tell people how easy it is."