YOUNGSTERS have been learning to play unusual musical instruments.

The instruments are being made from unused off-cuts of yellow gas pipe donated by gas pipeline company Transco to the Teesside Play and Educational Resource Centre, known as Percy the Pelican.

Middlesbrough-based Percy the Pelican takes unwanted materials from businesses and recycles them as arts and crafts materials for local schools, clubs and other youth organisations.

Working with local children, artists and co-ordinators have turned the polyethylene pieces into pipe that can be played.

Pauline Jones, the Percy resource co-ordinator, said: "We usually get items like paper but Transco's pipe is something completely different.

"Our artists come up with the ideas but it depends on the materials we get. They have to improvise because we never know what's going to come in. The only rules are that whatever we make must be safe and easy to make."

Some of the first people to try making the instruments were children at SureStart Hartlepool's first birthday party at its headquarters in Rossmere Way.

Transco network operations manager Peter Bates said: "I have seen our leftover pipe used in lots of different ways but this is one of the best. It's a great idea."