AN Oxford woman has won a recycling competition by making a pledge to improve her green credentials.

Oxfordshire Waste Partnership is asking people to pledge to recycle one more thing to improve the county’s 60 per cent recycling rate.

It comes after concerns that decade-long improvements in doorstep collection rates are levelling off.

The partnership – which pulls together councils’ recycling efforts – is offering annual passes to Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, as prizes.

Alison Gates, 58, from Woodstock Road, won by pledging to use the Freecycle website to reuse more items. People can give away items they no longer want to people who need them.

She said: “It is a nice thing to get because the prize is tickets to Blenheim Palace, which is lovely. I am very pleased.

“We do lots of recycling at home and at the school where I work, so I thought ‘what else can I do?’ I thought I am going to have to be much more on the ball with Freecycling and rather than throwing stuff away be much more conscious on reusing things.”

For information see oxfordshirewaste.gov.uk