EAST Cambridgeshire residents have proved they re winners when it comes to recycling – and now they are being rewarded. The first 80 visitors to the recycling bus at Ely Market Place tomorrow (Friday) will receive a free two-year-old native British saplin

EAST Cambridgeshire residents have proved they're winners when it comes to recycling - and now they are being rewarded.

The first 80 visitors to the recycling bus at Ely Market Place tomorrow (Friday) will receive a free two-year-old native British sapling tree to mark the achievement and National Tree Week.

The bus, run by Cambridgeshire County Council, will be in the city between 10am and 3pm as part of a tour round the district over the next few days.

Since April 2005, residents in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have recycled 500 tonnes of aluminium.

The energy saving made from recycling this amount could power a television set for more than 10,000 years.

The amount recycled is the equivalent of more than 30 million drinks cans and, to say thank-you, the free trees are being given away by the Aluminium Packaging Promotions Organisation which has donated one for every tonne of aluminium recycled.

Residents have smashed aluminium recycling records, as Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils collected 538 tonnes of aluminium cans, foil and scrap from households and recycling centres.

Kim Warren, Cambridgeshire County Council recycling bus manager, said: "There will be a choice of seven different species of native trees, help and advice about composting and ideas about how to reduce the growing amount of waste we produce.