Students at a Cleator Moor school have come up with an innovative way to keep their town tidy.

St Patrick’s Primary School pupils are competing in the First Lego League, a competition where teams from across the globe design, build and programme a Lego robot to complete a series of challenges.

As part of the competition, the children must also complete a project under the theme of City Shapers. They have to look at their town and identify specific problems to solve.

Teacher Rob Reid said: “Our team, Paddy’s Planners, chose to explore the impact of littering on the community.

“They realised that litter can affect the way that people view and treat the area, which can have an adverse affect on the lives of those in the community. They want people to have pride in Cleator Moor so to fully explore the extent of the problem of litter, they conducted a litter pick.”

Whitehaven Harbour Youth Project lent youngsters their gloves and grabbers and in less than an hour they collected over 15kg of litter from the streets.

Mr Reid added: “As a result of these findings, the team have come up with the awesome idea of installing digital bins which would allow users to accumulate points for the litter they put in bins by swiping their smart phone over the pad on the bin.

“The team have shown fantastic dedication to the project this year. It’s so reassuring to see that pupils at St Patrick’s have a real desire to improve their town and want people to take pride in Cleator Moor. On top of this, their imagination and creativity has led them to come up with an idea that could hopefully be made a reality in the future.”

Pupil, Poppy Daniels, aged 10, added: “You don’t realise how much litter there really is until you actually start looking for it.”

With Dexter Telford, aged nine, adding: “People need to start using the bins and recycling more to help our town and environment.”

And 10-year-old Rub Stainton said: “I think that our solution would be a great way to encourage people to use bins as they would be rewarded for their efforts.”