SCHOOL children have been introduced to the fleet of food waste trucks that they helped to name.

The pupils at John Blandy Primary School in Southmoor and Manor School in Didcot were formally introduced to Munching Molly and Trashosaurus last week.

Earlier this year Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils set the children a challenge to come up with suggestions for what their 12 new food waste trucks could be called.

Residents were then invited to vote for their favourite three from a list that included Peter Peeler, Biff Baff Boom and Wesley Waste Truck.

Thousands of people voted over four weeks with a name from the top six in each area proudly emblazoned on the side of every truck.

As the vehicles are released on the county's food waste, the children, who each won a swimming pass and £150 in book tokens for their school, got the chance to meet their creation.

In South Oxfordshire the top name of Trashosaurus was suggested by 10-year-old George Hopkins at Manor School.

Teacher Roberta Cresswell said: "We are always keen to learn about helping the environment, and we have just started recycling the food waste from our school kitchen.

"When I told the children about the competition, they came up with some great ideas for names like 'The Muncher' and 'Trashmobile.'

"Lois and George were thrilled to get their names into the final and our parents helped vote Trashosaurus to win.

"We spent our prize on a book for every child in the class."

The other five winning names in this area were Garbage Gobbler, Green Bean Machine, Waste Warrior, Chomper Charlie and the simple, but effective, Trevor.

In the Vale of White Horse, the most popular name was Munching Molly, put forward by pupils at John Blandy.

The other five names are Chompy, Compost Carl, Monster Munching Michael, Foody Fred and Banana-munch Bob.

Cooked and uncooked food waste collected by the new trucks is taken to an anaerobic digestion plant near Wallingford to be recycled into gas for electricity and fertiliser for local farmland.

During 2016/17, 10,024 tonnes of food waste was collected and sent for recycling in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse.