The discovery of a piece of guerrilla artwork that appeared overnight has drawn the attention of Winchester locals. Kit Fountain reports.

Winchester’s newest eco-friendly general store has opened its doors with big ideas in place for the high street.

Earthian, on Parchment Street, is a ‘zero waste’ shop, in which customers bring their own containers and weigh out their various goods.

While not being the first of its kind in Winchester – fellow refill shop Projects is mere streets away – owner Katie Campling has plans for other milestones.

She told Winol: “I have a big goal to reach by my first-year anniversary. I’d like the shop to be an accredited zero waste to landfill business, meaning not that not only do we help customers to be low waste at home, but all the waste we create as a business is also diverted from landfill.”

Despite the fact that less than 10% of household waste is sent to landfill in Hampshire each year, none of the stores on the Winchester high street have yet achieved the Valpak zero waste to landfill certification, which would make Earthian the first.

Ms Campling said: “When I started researching my shop, I knew I didn’t just want to open something that sold zero waste or low waste goods. I wanted everything about the shop to be sustainable, local and based in the community.

“A sustainable lifestyle is not going to come overnight or from buying a set of sustainable things. It takes time to change habits and routines that are ingrained in society, so we all need to be supportive and encouraging of each other.”

Earthian offers liquid refills on a ‘closed loop system’. Once the containers that dispense liquid products are empty, the 20 litre tubs are taken away to be sanitised and refilled before returned to the store with no excess packaging or waste involved. Other products are sourced from local towns, such as soap from Alton, cloth wipes from Eastleigh, and coffee from the New Forest.

Basingstoke Bison Coach Doug Sheppard says he was impressed with his side’s 6-1 thrashing of fierce rivals Bracknell Bees in the National Cup.

Just 5 minutes in the Bees were penalised as James Galazzi crashed into Bison keeper Dean Skinns, sending the Basingstoke man into his own net.

Roman Malinik then scored the opener for the Herd, with Daniel Scott stunning the Bees’ keeper Alex Mettam soon after with a powerful long range shot from a powerplay.

Tomas Karpov continued the scoring in the second period on a delayed penalty call, whilst Daniel Scott scored another long range shot shortly after when the puck broke to him at the top of the hash marks.

Hallam Wilson then fired in the fifth of the game, and was soon after knocked to the ice as the Bees’ frustration grew.

However in the third period, Wilson kept his cool and, showing little to no signs of damage from the hit, took the Bison to 6 goals after skilfully breezing past the Bees’ number 4 Luke Jackson, and slotting the puck cleanly past the keeper.

The opposition pulled one back through Joshua Thomas Martin with just 6 minutes to go, ending hopes of a clean sheet for Bison keeper Alex Mettam, but it was too little too late for the Bees.

“I thought we played really well tonight,” said Bison Coach Doug Sheppard, “We’ve been playing well for three weeks and we wanted to keep things going.”

“Derby nights can get like that,” he said about some of the nasty hits, “especially with the scoreline being what it was. They’re obviously frustrated, lost a few in a row, but I thought our guys handled it with some great play, and played hard throughout”.

Basingstoke Bison’s next game in the cup is away to Swindon Wildcats on Boxing Day, with the return leg the following day.