A “REPAIR café” will be the first in three weeks of events promoting the environmental message of reducing, reusing and recycling.

The Old Courthouse in Shap is organising and hosting the series of talks and sessions highlighting ways of living more sustainably.

They will run until Saturday, October 26, and begin this Sunday with the repair café between 10am and 1pm.

Volunteer repairers will be there to attempt to mend clothes, ornaments, furniture, electrical equipment or other items that could be restored rather than consigned to landfill. The repairs will be carried out for free but donations are welcomed.

On Wednesday at 7pm county council waste prevention officer Judith Bradshaw will give a “rubbish talk” about what happens to the waste we produce in Cumbria, and on Friday, October 11 there will be a Fairtrade event between 2pm and 5pm, with stalls and information.

At 7pm the following evening Matterdale teenager Amy Bray, founder of the environmental group Another Way, will give a talk entitled “Let’s Fix Our Future”. And on Friday, October 18 at 3pm Judith Bradshaw will hold a “love food, hate waste” session starting at 3pm.

A “freegle” event will be held the next day between 9.30am and 12.30pm, where people with items they want rid of are paired those wanting them.

Judith Bradshaw will be holding a book-folding and bottletop art activity for families on Wednesday, October 23 from 10am to midday. And between 2pm and 3pm the following Saturday Chloe Randall will be talking about composting and wormeries.

All events take place in the Old Courthouse except the repair café and the freegle event, which will be held in the Memorial Hall. For more details of all the events visit www.theoldcourthouse.org

* One of the scientists who discovered plastic in organisms in the deepest places on Earth has become a patron of the environment group set up by Amy Bray.

Dr Alan Jamieson, a senior lecturer in deep-sea biology at Newcastle University, has pledged his support to Another Way, the group established by Amy in January this year, when she was just 16.

Dr Jamieson said: “I support Another Way as it demonstrates that when one individual decides to make a difference, all those who follow can make an even bigger difference.

“Big changes will only happen when we decide we want them and not simply waiting for others to tell us so.”