WHAT do you do with a broken toaster? A faulty phone? Or with some jeans full of holes? Bin them?

A new project, the Machynlleth Repair Café, has been set up to help people bring their faulty electronics and ripped clothes back to life.

By promoting repairs, Machynlleth Repair Café wants to help reduce mountains of waste, save money and resources, and reduce CO2 emissions.

“We throw away piles of stuff in Wales, even things which have practically nothing wrong with them, and which could easily be used again after a simple repair,” said Lucy Morus-Baird of Ecodyfi, which has set up the repair café.

Lucy added: “Many people have forgotten they can have things repaired. Machynlleth Community Bike Workshop has started to change that culture and the repair café wants to build on that.”

Various volunteer repair experts were available to help make all possible repairs free of charge, and tools and materials will also be on hand.

Visitors were able to bring along their broken items from home including toasters, lamps, hair dryers, clothes, and toys with most of them being reparable.

For this first session these included people skilled with fabrics, electrical items and computers, including Apple Macs, but Ecodyfi is appealing for more people to help with the running of future workshops.

See this week’s south editions for the full story, in shops and online on Wednesday