'Stig brother' TV show that really IS rubbish

Viewers could be forgiven for thinking that a great deal of its output was, well, rubbish.

So they may not be terribly surprised to learn that the broadcaster's latest reality show will challenge ten individuals to spend a month living off garbage at a tip.

The new show, nicknamed Stig Brother, after the children's novel Stig of the Dump, will see participants forced to forage among household waste for shelter and clothes.

They will at least be spared the stomach-churning task of looking for daily meals among

the refuse at the dump in Croydon, South London. Instead, they will be made to choose from out-of-date food from supermarkets.

Given the working title Eco Challenge, it claims to highlight the amount we waste unnecessarily.

Volunteers will be seen building a kitchen from a few wheelie bins and an ancient woodburner.

Channel 4 says that the programme, which will air in the autumn, is more of an "observational documentary" than a reality show.

Andrew Mackenzie, executive producer of the programme, admitted: "Some of the tasks are pretty gross."

A Channel 4 spokesman added: "It is an observational documentary with a serious purpose, to highlight how much waste we produce and the perfectly reusable materials that we throw away.

"There is no contest and the programme will not be transmitted live."

The spokesman said that the participants came from a variety of backgrounds and were not all environmentalists.

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Channel 4 has been stung in recent weeks by criticism of its handling of Big Brother and its Princess Diana death crash documentary.

That programme was aired against the wishes of Princes William and Harry.

The broadcaster has had to make a series of grovelling apologies for its handling of the Shilpa Shetty race row on the last series of Celebrity Big Brother.

Then on Thursday last week the show faced further controversy after contestant Emily Parr, 19, called a black housemate a "n*****".

Eco Challenge, made by Online Productions, will be broadcast as the pressure from Government and local authorities on households to recycle intensifies.

Ministers hope scrapping weekly rubbish collections will force householders to recycle more.

This is despite the fact that many other countries achieve higher recycling rates than Britain, while still offering daily or twice-weekly refuse collections.

A consumer group also warned that doorstep recycling collections are woefully inadequate.

Research by Which? found that while the pressure on households to recycle is being stepped up, councils are failing to provide the necessary facilities.