This summer project run by two 16 year old students is now finished. Betsi Craig and Willa-Rose Callender organised and ran 4 events where we learned about and directly experienced small changes we could make in our everyday lives which would reduce energy, improve sustainability and increase our resilience. The first event was a clothes swap (popular as ever) where the majority of participants (of all ages) swapped clothes – taking away 3 or more ‘new to them’ clothes for further use and enjoyment. 2 bags of the left over clothes were helpfully taken by Rhiannon Davies to a refugee day at Libanus 2 days later.

This was followed by the film : Fashion Re-imagined which explored powerfully the reality (in terms of energy and water) given only a fifth of the UK’s annual consumption (by weight) of clothing and textile products is manufactured in the UK and also manufacturing a single conventional cotton T-shirt requires approximately 2,700 litres of water. Most clothing, we learned, involves multiple different countries in generating the raw materials and in manufacturing the end product before even being transported to the UK. It made us think about the actual items we were wearing that evening.

The third event included a set of fun hands on demonstrations of making your own domestic cleaning products to avoid the chemical waste and pollution that many popular commercial products cause.

The final event was a a skill share where Willa and Betsi demonstrated how to make Tote bags from some of the donated clothes from the earlier Swapshop event. There was also an enthusiastic group of knitters from Gilwern who got a group of us knitting cotton dishcloths! And 2 local friends demonstrated seed collecting and growing and simple woodworking skills. We decided, if there are future Swapshop events, these could include some skill sharing demos running alongside these in the same space.

Talybont Energy would like to thank Willa and Betsi for an inspirational and enjoyable set of events.