Local makers joined forces on Saturday for The Sheffield Sustainability Market, to celebrate Sheffield as one of the greenest cities in the UK.

On 25 April, South Yorkshire businesses gathered in Victoria Hall for the second year running, organised by Sheffield Action on Plastic (SAOP).

SAOP is a local environmental community organisation who work with the Sheffield community to reduce single-use plastics.

The group is entirely run by volunteers and led by Greg Hewitt, 37, who set it up after moving to Sheffield and noticing a lot of single use plastic.

Mr Hewitt said: “The Sheffield Sustainable Market is all about bringing businesses together to showcase sustainability and adopt plastic free measures, so people can come along and know that they’re shopping sustainably.

“They’re doing the right thing and they’re supporting local makers knowing that there’s no no single use plastic at the market.”

The market takes place twice a year and is one of the many things SAOP do to help reduce plastic in Sheffield.

“We get about 450 to 500 people coming to the market, they are very popular, and we collect feedback at the end and people tell us how they really love the market,” Mr Hewitt added.

One of the vendors there was Matthew Reynolds, the owner of The Bare Alternative, South Yorkshire’s biggest low-waste lifestyle and refill shop, on Abbeydale Road.

Mr Reynolds set up the store in 2018 to ensure people have zero-waste products and sustainable alternatives to everyday products.

“We sell a range of products like refills, so you bring your own containers for dried foods like pasta and liquids like laundry detergent and washing up liquid, so that’s all about cutting out plastic from your shopping.

“We also do sustainable alternatives as well, so things like bamboo toothbrushes and chocolate, we look at the sourcing of the ingredients to make sure that the cocoa is ethically sourced.”

Another stall was SY Ecofit, a group founded by local residents with a shared commitment to bring South Yorkshire closer to net zero by improving the energy efficiency in homes and community centres.

Lizzie Stygall, a project developer, for SY Ecofit spoke about the organisations plan to decarbonise Our Cow Molly, a local dairy farm.

“The process that we’re looking at will actually take cow slurry that’s on the farm and convert that into energy, hot water, and then as a by-product will also produce a fantastic fertilizer, and we’re actually sequestering methane.

“Doing that, we’re turning the very harmful greenhouse gas, methane into energy and the less harmful carbon dioxide, so you’re producing something from waste”, she said.

Outside of the market, SAOP run a free 10-week email course ‘Unpacking Plastic’ to help people learn about sustainability alongside advice on living with less plastic.

The course was created by Emma Andrews, a volunteer with SAOP, who said: “I’ve got a teaching background, so Greg asked me if I do some educational work around plastic, and that’s how the online course came about.”

As well as their education efforts, SAOP work closely with the council and local businesses to help champion sustainability within Sheffield.

They offer a reusable cup hire service for events to reduce single-use disposable cups, as well as pushing the council to ban traders in the city centre from using single use plastic cups.