GREEN-FINGERED North Yorkshire residents are being offered the chance to win £50 of garden centre vouchers, in an effort to promote the benefits of composting.

Recycle Now is offering the vouchers to people who buy a compost bin during Compost Awareness Week, which runs from Sunday until next Thursday.

A spokesman for Recycle Now said: "We can all help the planet and keep our gardens in bloom, by home composting our kitchen and garden waste or using peat-free composts containing recycled materials.

"Home composting is a simple and cheap way of dealing with up to a third of a typical family's waste bin, and it is a brilliant way to help the environment.

"It's not just fruit and vegetable peelings that you can compost - toilet roll tubes, coffee grounds, tea bags, and egg boxes will all add nutrients to the mix."

Almost anything organic can be composted, from shredded confidential documents and scrunched up cereal boxes to grass cuttings.

Anyone living in North Yorkshire who places an order between Sunday and next Thursday will be entered into the free prize draw to win the vouchers.

Composting advisors will be available at the following times and places so residents can hear more about home composting and find out about composting: May 3 to May 5, from 10am to 5pm, Dales Festival of Food and Drink, Leyburn; May 4, from 10am to 4pm, at Spring Flower Show, Harrogate; May 5, from 10am to 4pm, Secret Wood Event, Raincliffe Woods, Scarborough; May 7, from 2pm to 6pm, Horticulture Centre, Craven College, Skipton; May 8, from 10am to noon, Tadcaster Household Waste Recycling Centre; May 8, from noon to 2pm, Selby Household Waste Recycling Centre; May 10, from 10am to 2pm, Community Room, Helmsley Walled Garden, Helmsley; May 10, from 10am to 4.30pm, Saving Energy Show, Town Hall, Northallerton.

For more information, visit compostawarenessweek.org.uk or call 0845-077-0757.