EVESHAM'S famous son, Alistair McGowan, has helped the Woodland Trust to launch its 2005 Christmas Card recycling Scheme.

The TV impressionist yesterday called on everyone to impersonate him and recycle their cards.

Mr McGowan said: "More than a billion cards will have been sent by people in the UK this Christmas.

"We want to recycle as many of these as possible to raise money to plant more trees and cut down on the amount of waste that traditionally gets binned at this time of year."

Recycling bins will be available at all WHSmith and Tesco stores throughout January to give everyone time to recycle their cards instead of throwing them away.

The Woodland Trust, in partnership with the stores, is running the 2005 Christmas Card Recycling Scheme backed by the new national recycling Campaign, Recycle Now.

Mr McGowan added: "Over 45 million cards were collected and recycled by the scheme last year which helped save the equivalent of 15,000 trees.

This year we want to beat that and recycle 50 million cards - so it would only take each of us in the country to recycle one of our Christmas cards to smash the target."

Elliot Morley, Minister for the Environment, lent his support to the campaign: "There was a fantastic response from the public last year, helping to cut the amount of rubbish thrown away as well as protect the UK's treasured woodlands."

Penny Pulfrey of the Woodlands Trust said: "We're delighted to team up with Recycle Now and secure Alistair's support to kick-off the 2005 Christmas Card Recycling Scheme. We are hoping that the campaign will be an even bigger success in 2005.