THOUSANDS of old phone books were magically turned into film characters yesterday by young fans of the Wizard of Oz.

Following a competition to collect old directories, pupils from 18 schools have been working with artists to build their own Yellow Brick Road with models of characters from the Judy Garland film.

The competition was organised by Sedgefield Borough Council and environmental project WasteWise. The recycling campaign is supported by the Directory Recycling Scheme, sponsored by Yellow Pages.

For two months, children throughout the borough have been collecting directories, which will eventually be turned into animal bedding.

Pupils from Tudhoe Moor Nursery School won the competition with 1,023 books, which was the most per pupil, and received £500 from Yellow Pages towards environmental improvements at their school.

With pupils from Ox Close Primary School, in Spennymoor, St Joseph's, Newton Aycliffe, and Ferryhill Comprehensive, they joined community artists from Percy (Play and Education Recource Centre), in Middlesbrough, to create life-like models of Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow.

WasteWise manager Rich Hurst said: "The competition encourages children to develop good habits at an early age and, seeing the number of directories collected, it also gives them a vivid understanding of the amount of waste we produce."

Tudhoe Moor head Sandra Heslop said: "We are ever keen to educate students about recycling. They all responded to the challenge enthusiastically and amazed the staff with the number of directories they collected."