Fed Square is running a free festival that's basically therapy dressed up as a sustainability event

Fed Square has once again decided that saving the planet should feel more like a hangout than homework, and honestly, it is working.

RESET, the free sustainability festival, is back running until 17 October, and this year's program reads like something dreamed up by your most switched on friend. First up is the Zero Waste Festival on Saturday 12 September, from midday to 7.30pm across the Atrium and The Edge. Expect repair stations for clothes and small electronics, book and fabric swaps, sustainable cooking demos and market stalls from zero waste small businesses. It all builds to the inaugural ReWear Runway, a fashion show made entirely from repaired, reclaimed and repurposed garments, which is either the most Melbourne sentence ever written or the most useful one.

Then on Friday 18 September, Fed Square is marking World Cleanup Day with a proper hands-on community clean up along the Birrarung Marr walk, led by the Yarra Riverkeeper Association. Roll up, help pull rubbish out of the river, then get rewarded with free tea, coffee and a sausage sizzle. Genuinely hard to argue with that trade.

For anyone after something less active, the outdoor cinema returns from 30 September to 2 October with a run of nostalgic 90s eco classics on the Big Screen, including Free Willy and Flipper, plus Fly Away Home for good measure. Bring a blanket, sit on the grass in the city and let a CGI whale do the emotional labour for you.

What makes RESET work is that none of it feels like a lecture. It is planting, mending, swapping and watching movies about animals, dressed up as environmental action, which is a pretty clever way to get people who would normally scroll past a sustainability event to actually rock up.

Everything is free, most of it does not require a booking, and it runs right through the school holidays if you need something to do with the kids that is not another trip to the arcade. Head to Fed Square's website for the full program and lock in your dates.