It may be a tiny dot on the planet, but the village of Chew Magna has set out to save the world, reports GraduateEngineer.com. The community of 1,100 in the Chew Valley, south of Bristol, hopes to become the first in Britain to cause no damage to the planet.

Engineering students from the University of Bath have already drawn up options to power the village using renewable energy.

And the villagers are well on their way to buying an old mill, which they hope will become a miniature power station as well as a recycling depot, an education centre and campaign headquar ters.

In 2001, the South West consumed 48 million tonnes of materials and products and generated 20.3million tonnes of waste - just over four tonnes per person.

Chew Magna residents are aiming to cut their share to zero by changing the way they shop, eat, travel and think about rubbish. They have also made links with communities in Ghana, southern India, New Zealand, Canada and Sri Lanka in the hope that their grassroots mission will become a global enterprise.

Ian Roderick, one of the brains behind the project, admitted the biggest challenge would be getting enough villagers committed to such an ambitious vision. So he was thrilled when hundreds turned out for the first Chew Magna zero-waste action day on Saturday. The church hall was packed with exhibition stands showing residents where they could buy local food, how they could cut electricity bills through better house insulation and how to join a car-sharing scheme, among other ideas.

Mr Roderick, who is a member of Schumacher UK, the renowned West institute promoting sustainable development, told the assembled crowd not to feel daunted by the ambitious agenda. "If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito," he told them, quoting the late social scientist Kenneth Boulding. He added: "We want to do this in a way that enhances the spirit, to make sure it‘‘s an exciting venture and a great challenge for the future."

Bath University mechanical engineering students have calculated that Chew Magna uses 1.5megawatts of energy a year. They say two wind turbines would power the whole village and would be the cheapest option for the community, providing energy at 1.4p per kilowatt hour, compared with 7p per kilowatt hour from the National Grid. Generating hydroelectric power from two existing weirs on the River Chew would power 19 homes or perhaps the village street lighting, they said. Solar panels and photovoltaic cells are currently expensive - costing 20p per kilowatt hour - but the cost could be reduced radically if villagers bought in bulk, they added.

Not everyone in Chew Magna is optimistic about the project. Bill Jackson, who owns the village deli, Baraka, said: "It‘‘s great that the people of Chew Magna are pulling together to do this, but it‘‘s not our place to have to do it. It‘‘s the council‘‘s responsibility to have to implement this."