A COUNCIL is offering thousands more Teessiders a chance to be environment-friendly.

Stockton Borough Council will leave blue bin bags for residents to recycle their waste paper.

Householders in Stockton and Thornaby simply collect their waste paper into the blue recycling bags and leave them for collection on the scheduled day.

The delivery programme is the latest stage in Stockton council's Blue Bag recycling scheme for waste paper.

It will see an extra 22,000 homes join the 45,000 which began using the system earlier this year.

More than 90 per cent of homes in the Stockton area are now included in the scheme, with 160 tonnes of paper being collected each month, which will rise to about 3,000 tonnes during a full year.

The scheme has placed Stockton as one of the region's leading authorities for recycling waste paper. It will be a major boost towards the council's target of recycling ten per cent of its domestic waste in the next two years.