DOING her bit for conservation has earned a Stourport woman a place in the national final of a business awards competition.

Beth Williams is among contenders for Country Living magazine's Enterprising Rural Women Awards. Winners will be announced during a private ceremony at the Royal Horticultural Society's Hampton Court Palace Flower Show on Thursday, July 6.

Miss Williams, an ecology lecturer, is the founder and owner of Turtle Bags, an environmentally-friendly business intended to encourage people to use her jute and cotton bags as an alternative to plastic bags.

Her product has been designed to counter the problems of plastic bags, which do not fully degrade and can pass as dust through filters and be eaten by marine wildlife, such as turtles.

If the animals enter the food chain, they can then be consumed by humans.

She was prompted to develop her bags after discovering plastic ones were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of leatherback turtles.

The awards competition she has qualified for recognises and rewards excellence in rural enterprise.

Miss Williams, who lives with her partner, Andrew Sharkey and two children, Seamus and Connie, in Stourport Road, has received WiRE - Women in Rural Enterprise - cash from the European Structural Fund, ESF, to support her business.

All her packaging advertises the Marine Conserv-ation Society's Adopt a Turtle scheme.

She also ensures the bags have an ethical supply chain, including the organic cotton which the products are made from and the working conditions of the people who make them.

Miss Williams is extending her product range this summer by adding woven, naturally dyed sisal bags made by a women's co-operative in Ecuador.

Country Living editor, Susy Smith, said: "These awards are the top accolades for women in rural business.

"They celebrate the drive and ingenuity required to turn a simple idea into a profit-making enterprise and we are especially keen to reward those who have brought real benefit to their local community."