NORTH Yorkshire is proving that where there's muck there's brass with £1m to be given to a string of projects thanks to the Landfill Tax.

Yorventure has pledged the money for the coming year to benefit a wide range of environmental and educational projects.

Steve Grieve, managing director of Yorwaste, which provides the landfill tax credits, said: "It brings the total sum made available for projects in the county to £2.5m since August 1997."

Among the latest schemes to benefit is a pond at Skelton, restored by villagers with help from a £20,000 grant.

Harrogate Young Ornithologists Club used a £12,000 Yorventure grant to create a nature reserve at Goosemoore Organic Farm, Cowthorpe.

A sensory garden at the Archaeological Resource Centre, at Saviourgate, York, has been given £10,000, and a boardwalk has been provided in the National Nature Reserve, at Forge Valley, near Scarborough.

A 42-acre conservation area at Foxglove Covert at Catterick Garrison has also been aided.

Mr Grieve said money had been used to fund a research project, Green Garden Waste Initiative, at Leeds University. As a result, free compost was available in the York area.

Skips at York's two household waste recycling sites, at Foss Islands Road and Towthorpe, take garden waste, which is turned into compost.