A ZERO waste workshop and a talk on the benefits of recycling was held in Whitchurch.

The talk was given by Alison Thomas from Zero Waste Shrewsbury and took place in the the Black Bear Pub in High Street on Tuesday, January 24.

The event was organised by the Blackberry Fair organising committee and Blackberry Fair organiser Steve Chapman hopes more people will recycle plastic and food waste.

He said: "At the next Blackberry Fair, we are really going to go to town and try to get more people involved in it.

"It was trying to engage with local businesses."

He added: "It was a little bit thin on the ground to start with but I was determined to go ahead with it. It's the beginning of something for us.

"We have run zero-waste bins in the Blackberry Fair as well.

"Somebody complained last year about the mess on the street. We went through all our waste and bagged it up and took it down to zero waste in Shrewsbury who then get what they can recycled."

Steve spoke about why many people believe food waste should be recycled.

He said: "The difficulty with food waste is it produces methane. And methane is worse than carbon dioxide. 

"Getting people to recycle their food waste is very important.

"If it gets thrown with the rest of the landfill, that is producing an even greater amount of gas into the atmosphere."

He added: "Blackberry Fair is built on positive action and we decided to go beyond raising awareness and do something.

"So it is putting projects like this into operation is the next step."