We're all told to be more eco-friendly, live a greener life and to do our bit to help the planet, but have you heard of the repair café sweeping across the country?

Dorchester is lucky enough to have its own with a team of volunteers giving up their time and skills freely to keep items away from landfill.

The group pop up round the town each month, inviting both residents and visitors to bring in clocks, clothes, garden machinery, toys, computers - anything they need to be repaired.

Emma Teasdale, who helped set up the group, said: "We're wanting to save as much stuff from landfill as possible and we thought the repair café was an amazing way to promote that concept, and change the culture of rubbish and what people throw away. But also, it's a really good community venture as well and our volunteers get so much out of it and create friendships and links with the people that come and bring their things to be repaired, and I think it gives a real sense of achievement for the people preventing things from being thrown away but also hopefully learning how to fix things in the future.

"We encourage people to sit with the repairer and watch the repair happening so the idea is you're giving them, hopefully, some of the skills and confidence to have a go themselves and foster the culture of repairing, not replacing."

The group is in talks with Dorset Council Waste Services to see how they can work together to prevent even more repairable items going to landfill.

Emma added: "There's a huge amount of things that need to take place in terms of the infrastructure of waste and things actually being repairable, because a lot of things are designed not to be repaired.

"We're working with Dorset waste services, hopefully to try and incorporate the repair cafes into the waste system in Dorset. There are now eight repair cafes across Dorset, which is amazing, and what we want is to have repair cafes advertised at the household waste and recycling centres around Dorset. We know the tip is your last resort if you've tried to sell it or take it to a charity shop… sometimes you will end up taking it to the tip, but if those things are useable, we can be that level and repair that and either send it on the Dorset Reclaim to be resold or given to people in need and be that extra layer into the waste infrastructure. That's our vision for the repair café culture in Dorset."

Dorchester Repair Café is lucky to have volunteers with a range of skills.

Rosie, who has been with the repair café for over a year now, approach the group to offer her talent.

"I repair mobile phones, tablets, Bluetooth speakers, computers - it's good fun.

"I had a business in town called Fix it Phones, I just do it from home part time now since Covid.

"I love it more as a hobby than a business and they are a great bunch of people here. I like looking what the others are fixing, it's fascinating.

"I used to work for a charity years ago that repaired bikes and that was good.

"I like to fix stuff, I like the end result."

Irene has been with Dorchester Repair Café since it started a couple of years ago and her expertise is in sewing.

She said; "I have sewn for most of my life and when I saw the repair café advertised in Facebook, I joined.

"Anything that needs sewing or repairing, we can do that for you."

Nigel is relatively new to the group, joining just over three months ago and bringing with him electrical and mechanical skills.

"I had heard about repair cafes and I just thought it was a good idea, because there are lots of things at home that I repair myself that others may just chuck away, so I thought I might as well do that for other people.

"I've repaired more or less anything electrical, simple plumbing, computer related software, that sort of thing, all the things that go wrong in the house."

Dorchester Repair Café will be popping up next at Shire Hall on Saturday, May 28.

To keep up to date with where the group is, follow Dorchester Repair Café on Facebook.