0:00:06 > 0:00:10These programmes reveal how the history of household rubbish
0:00:10 > 0:00:13has influenced the world we live in today.
0:00:15 > 0:00:16Take a look at this...
0:00:21 > 0:00:24..the refuse of a couple of days from one home.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28In the second half of the 20th century,
0:00:28 > 0:00:32the amount Britons threw away grew remorselessly.
0:00:32 > 0:00:37Sometimes increasing at seven percent a year.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41We actually walked in amongst that and I've had it up to me shoulders,
0:00:41 > 0:00:42pulling the rubbish towards me.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51This film looks at what was in the bins
0:00:51 > 0:00:55during the decades immediately after the Second World War...
0:00:56 > 0:01:00..as a land of Make Do And Mend, became a throwaway society.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08Suddenly, there were supermarkets and High-Street fashion...
0:01:09 > 0:01:12..fancy new toys and interior design...
0:01:13 > 0:01:16..and as each fad was thrown out to make room for the next one,
0:01:16 > 0:01:22Britain's waste stream swelled to unprecedented levels...
0:01:22 > 0:01:26It was a mountain of rubbish, almost to the canopy of those trees.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31..this programme reveals the birth of modern Britain -
0:01:31 > 0:01:33seen from the back-end.
0:01:43 > 0:01:4670 years ago, just as we do today,
0:01:46 > 0:01:49Britons sorted their waste on the doorstep.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55'Ere, the professor wants to talk to you.
0:01:55 > 0:01:57Thanks but I've left school and I'm going home to play.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00'Ere, don't you know there's war on?
0:02:00 > 0:02:02In the Second World War,
0:02:02 > 0:02:06the British government mobilised everything for its war industries -
0:02:06 > 0:02:08including the household bin.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13The infrastructure for recycling,
0:02:13 > 0:02:15or, "salvage," as it was then called,
0:02:15 > 0:02:19was provided by the waste management industry...
0:02:21 > 0:02:25..but putting the right rubbish in the right bin, was a citizen's job.
0:02:28 > 0:02:30How do you do?
0:02:30 > 0:02:31Ah, bones!
0:02:31 > 0:02:33What is the use of old bones?
0:02:33 > 0:02:37Every scrap of bone is useful - glycerine is also got from the bones
0:02:37 > 0:02:41and is used for making high explosives.
0:02:41 > 0:02:46During the War, nine million tons of household rubbish was salvaged -
0:02:46 > 0:02:49equivalent to the weight of 200 battleships.
0:02:57 > 0:02:59Here we go, boys!
0:03:00 > 0:03:02Yippee!
0:03:10 > 0:03:15But, by 1945 Britain was running out of vital necessities.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20Fuel, food and clothes, were rationed,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23as they had been throughout the conflict.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26People simply couldn't afford to throw things away.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30Oh, something I forgot to show you.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Eileen Mead grew up in the years just after the War.
0:03:39 > 0:03:40Erm...
0:03:42 > 0:03:47..redcurrant jelly - I've got a redcurrant bush in the garden,
0:03:47 > 0:03:52quince jelly - from my neighbour's quince tree...
0:03:52 > 0:03:56this is from my sister-in-law.
0:03:56 > 0:04:02We traded her marmalade and rowan jelly for some of my quince.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10British cooks of the 1940s, left nothing to waste.
0:04:10 > 0:04:15'An appetising mixture of soft roes and baked spuds in their jackets.'
0:04:15 > 0:04:18The few leftovers that cooks could find no use for
0:04:18 > 0:04:20were fed to farm animals.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24On street corners there were pig bins to collect kitchen scraps.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29# Yes, that's how you'll all save your bacon! #
0:04:37 > 0:04:39Oh, yes, quite interesting in here.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42Waste was also reduced with a needle and thread.
0:04:42 > 0:04:48This was a double duvet cover that I cut down to single
0:04:48 > 0:04:52and made a cover for this pillow
0:04:52 > 0:04:58so I can have matching duvet cover and...pillow.
0:04:58 > 0:05:02It was a wartime propaganda campaign
0:05:02 > 0:05:06that had first taught people like Eileen to produce less rubbish
0:05:06 > 0:05:08and instead Make Do And Mend.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11'We'll join forces and make John a new sweater.'
0:05:11 > 0:05:12'Yo, swish!'
0:05:12 > 0:05:14Why not get together with your friends
0:05:14 > 0:05:17and form a Make Do And Mend group?
0:05:20 > 0:05:21A shoe bag...
0:05:21 > 0:05:23some of my own clothes...
0:05:25 > 0:05:29..there was a piece of material over so I made a bag.
0:05:32 > 0:05:34By the late '40s, war and austerity
0:05:34 > 0:05:37had moulded the way Briton's thought about rubbish.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45A nice piece of doggy material...
0:05:49 > 0:05:52'It's too small to use for anything, is it, or not?'
0:05:52 > 0:05:54No, I've got a use for it.
0:05:56 > 0:05:5860 years ago,
0:05:58 > 0:06:02all that went in the bin was what householders could find no use for.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08As 90-year-old Ernie Sharp knows well.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14In 1947, when he was de-mobbed from the army,
0:06:14 > 0:06:16Ernie got a job as a dustman.
0:06:18 > 0:06:23When I would walk into the first house...down the side...
0:06:26 > 0:06:28..a bit faster than that, of course!
0:06:28 > 0:06:32The bins were kept down the side or at the rear of the house.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36Dustmen hauled them to the kerb on their backs.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41I used to have a leather belt round my waist...
0:06:41 > 0:06:44and when I carried the bin on my back,
0:06:44 > 0:06:47the bottom of the bin would rest on the belt.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54When full, the steel bins were heavy and cumbersome.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02It's getting the knack of swinging the bin round,
0:07:02 > 0:07:04you gotta get the bin round to behind you.
0:07:04 > 0:07:09All together, you're lifting up over half a hundredweight,
0:07:09 > 0:07:12perhaps, going up three-quarter of a hundredweight at a time.
0:07:14 > 0:07:16The bins weighed so much
0:07:16 > 0:07:19because half of British household rubbish was ash
0:07:19 > 0:07:21that had been raked out of the fire grate.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25This was where the term "dustbin" came from.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30It was...strenuous...
0:07:30 > 0:07:34but after a month or two
0:07:34 > 0:07:38the camaraderie amongst the refuse collectors was such
0:07:38 > 0:07:42that I began to get used to it.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53Coal ash had been the main constituent of household rubbish
0:07:53 > 0:07:55for over a century.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59Since the coal-fired hearth became the centre of British family life.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13There you are...one bin up!
0:08:20 > 0:08:23But in the mid-50s, the waste management industry
0:08:23 > 0:08:27was caught unawares by a sudden change in British rubbish.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32It was a side-effect of a government anti-pollution law
0:08:32 > 0:08:33called the Clean Air Act.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39The smoke produced by Britain's millions of coal fires
0:08:39 > 0:08:42had been contributing to a national nuisance.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46Smog is simply natural fog,
0:08:46 > 0:08:51which is polluted by the discharges from burning fuel.
0:08:51 > 0:08:554,000 people died in the Great Smog of 1952.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00So the Clean Air Act created smokeless zones,
0:09:00 > 0:09:02in which open fires were restricted.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10The impact on air pollution was an immediate improvement.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14The refuse collectors' lives got easier too.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20We began to see less dust and cinder.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24So consequently the bin was that bit lighter.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31Ernie Sharp was no longer an actual "dust" man...
0:09:34 > 0:09:37..it was an early sign that the coal-fired era,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41which dated back to the 19th century's industrial revolution,
0:09:41 > 0:09:43was at last passing into history.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55The composition of the household bin changed rapidly
0:09:55 > 0:09:57in the post-war period.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02Within a decade of the Clean Air Act,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06the share the British household rubbish that was coal ash halved...
0:10:07 > 0:10:10..but the share of paper, cardboard and glass doubled...
0:10:12 > 0:10:14..so though the rubbish was getting lighter,
0:10:14 > 0:10:16the volume of it was rising.
0:10:22 > 0:10:28'Refuse, rubbish, garbage, gash, trash, waste -
0:10:28 > 0:10:31'each person throws away four or five hundredweight of it a year.'
0:10:31 > 0:10:35The bulky trash was the result of a new kind of shopping habit
0:10:35 > 0:10:38that was sweeping through Britain in the 1950s.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50Rationing ended in 1954...
0:10:50 > 0:10:53and austerity was at last giving way to affluence.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59'A transatlantic phenomenon has, at last,
0:10:59 > 0:11:02'made its mark in British shops - the self-service store.'
0:11:04 > 0:11:06Now, British shoppers were enjoying an innovation
0:11:06 > 0:11:11that had recently appeared on the High Street - the self-service shop.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15It had been pioneered in '30s America
0:11:15 > 0:11:18but was a novelty in post-war Britain.
0:11:19 > 0:11:24'Self-service is a new word that has to be learned and explained.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28'People just weren't familiar the idea that you might actually'
0:11:28 > 0:11:33pick the stuff up off the shelves yourself and put it in your basket.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36That wasn't shopping, that was shoplifting,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39until you were reassured that it wasn't.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44Self-service shops encouraged shoppers to be curious -
0:11:44 > 0:11:47not just to look, but touch as well.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52So to protect the produce from those feeling fingers,
0:11:52 > 0:11:53everything had to be packaged.
0:11:56 > 0:12:01Packages basically make possible the kind of display
0:12:01 > 0:12:05that you're going to get in the post-war supermarkets,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09those who love packaging say packaging is so much more hygienic -
0:12:09 > 0:12:11that's a big word at the time -
0:12:11 > 0:12:14it keeps away the germs, it keeps away the dust.
0:12:14 > 0:12:20It's not this messy old-fashioned muck of the small store.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27Of course, once what has been bought is consumed,
0:12:27 > 0:12:29its wrapping becomes rubbish.
0:12:31 > 0:12:36'So Let's talk rubbish - 370,000 tons of it.'
0:12:41 > 0:12:43There was no national strategy
0:12:43 > 0:12:45for dealing with the changes in the rubbish
0:12:45 > 0:12:49brought about by the Clean Air Act and self-service shops.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54Once the War was won, responsibility for waste management
0:12:54 > 0:12:57was in the hands of the country's local authorities.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02In London, this meant a patchwork of boroughs...
0:13:04 > 0:13:08..but in Birmingham, one authority collected the rubbish
0:13:08 > 0:13:11for the entire city of over a million people...
0:13:13 > 0:13:16..this was the largest such operation in Britain.
0:13:22 > 0:13:24'And that's not talking rubbish.'
0:13:28 > 0:13:31Languishing in the stores of the city's technology museum
0:13:31 > 0:13:33is the forgotten workhorse
0:13:33 > 0:13:37of Birmingham's post-war refuse collection system.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39- Come on and look.- Yeah.
0:13:40 > 0:13:44Roger Nichols and Les Wainright were Birmingham dustmen.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47Oh, I can see one of them.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50- It's the old bullnose one.- Yeah.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52Yeah, I remember that.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55They haven't seen one of their old dustcarts for 40 years.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00How they used to get into these things, Les!
0:14:00 > 0:14:02I can get in, but Jesus wept!
0:14:05 > 0:14:07How'd I used to get in these?!
0:14:07 > 0:14:09Yeah, that's the accelerator, here.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12I saw the accelerator, Les.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14That was the, the other...
0:14:14 > 0:14:16HORN HONKING
0:14:19 > 0:14:22These post-war dustcarts had been designed in the 1930s.
0:14:24 > 0:14:25'What's top speed?'
0:14:25 > 0:14:28- Loaded, I would say five or six.- Yeah.
0:14:28 > 0:14:29'Five or six what?'
0:14:29 > 0:14:31Mile an hour.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35And swear...
0:14:35 > 0:14:39that's how you turned, and you couldn't reverse.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43The reason for the sluggish pace and the lack of manoeuvrability
0:14:43 > 0:14:46was that these dustcarts were electric powered.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49They were more like milk floats than heavy-duty trucks.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54- That's the batteries, under there. - Yeah, that's right.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58There's usually a charging point somewhere, you used to plug them in.
0:14:58 > 0:15:03In the late 1950s, the volume of rubbish in Birmingham rose so fast,
0:15:03 > 0:15:06the dustcarts were running out of juice.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09In the morning go out at half past seven -
0:15:09 > 0:15:11nine o'clock the bleeding thing was nearly full.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15Into the depot, go and have your breakfast,
0:15:15 > 0:15:18and out again, and then about 12 o'clock had to get back in again
0:15:18 > 0:15:21because the bleeding things are packing up.
0:15:21 > 0:15:24Les drove until his batteries were almost flat.
0:15:24 > 0:15:25It was hazardous.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28You couldn't stop once the batteries were getting low
0:15:28 > 0:15:31cos if you did you'd be stuck in middle of the road or somewhere.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47Birmingham City Council persevered with electric dustcarts
0:15:47 > 0:15:51because what was at stake was more than a technology -
0:15:51 > 0:15:55it was the City Council's entire philosophy of waste management.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00The department of Birmingham City Council
0:16:00 > 0:16:04that oversaw refuse collection was called the Salvage Department.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07The whole culture of Birmingham
0:16:07 > 0:16:13was always a culture of trying to use waste in whatever way they can.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18Bob Evans was a manager in Birmingham's Salvage Department.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25The waste from the jewellery quarter, the gold and the platinum,
0:16:25 > 0:16:29they reused that and sold it back to them and used it again.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33The whole emphasis was on conservation of materials
0:16:33 > 0:16:36and reuse of materials, even from that period of time.
0:16:36 > 0:16:38Yes, it was.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41So Birmingham dustmen didn't just collect rubbish,
0:16:41 > 0:16:46they often earned overtime hand-sorting it for recyclables.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48We used sit to sitting on the belt picking bit of rag off
0:16:48 > 0:16:52or picking tins up, or whatever went through.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54Paper, cloth, metal, glass
0:16:54 > 0:16:58was picked-off the conveyor belt of rubbish.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01The City Council sold these materials
0:17:01 > 0:17:02to Britain's recycling sector.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08In the early post-war period there was money in muck.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10For instance, in 1959,
0:17:10 > 0:17:15a quarter of all Britain's paper was made from recycled sources.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21- But you never knew what was coming through on the belt. - On them belts, no.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25- You didn't.- Cats, dogs, or whatever people used to put in the bin,
0:17:25 > 0:17:27- that used to come up.- Yeah.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31Found a stillborn baby once, what was put in a bin.
0:17:31 > 0:17:33That come up on the belt once.
0:17:33 > 0:17:36I thought it was a doll only it was a stillborn baby.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38Had to stop the belt and get in touch with the police
0:17:38 > 0:17:41for them to come and take it away,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45You've got to have a good stomach to stomach that job, haven't you?
0:17:49 > 0:17:50Well into the '50s,
0:17:50 > 0:17:55Birmingham's Salvage Department seemed to show that recycling,
0:17:55 > 0:17:59which had helped win the war, could also flourish in Modern Britain...
0:18:07 > 0:18:10..but at the heart of Birmingham's waste management operation
0:18:10 > 0:18:13was a technology from the previous century.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18What couldn't be salvaged was incinerated
0:18:18 > 0:18:21in huge furnaces called destructors.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26These were a Victorian invention
0:18:26 > 0:18:29but, in 1950, Birmingham was one of many British cities
0:18:29 > 0:18:31still using them.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35They'd have to do a quite a lot of lifting and shifting.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38Shift this across and then what you'd have, here,
0:18:38 > 0:18:41you've have a big huge amount of heat coming out of here
0:18:41 > 0:18:44because this would be feeding direct into the grate.
0:18:44 > 0:18:49It would be a steaming, hissing, dusty, dirty place.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53Joe Wainwright worked for Birmingham City Council
0:18:53 > 0:18:57feeding one of these fire-breathing monsters.
0:18:57 > 0:19:03With the drag we would pull the rubbish down from the loading deck
0:19:03 > 0:19:06and into a small opening, there, where the smoke's coming up,
0:19:06 > 0:19:12straight into the fire cell, where it would be incinerated.
0:19:12 > 0:19:13That's all you did.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17You just manoeuvred it into position and then pushed it down the hole,
0:19:17 > 0:19:19and we actually walked in amongst that.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23I've had it up to my shoulders, pulling the rubbish towards me.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27There was a huge manual effort here from guys,
0:19:27 > 0:19:30which would be going on 24 hours a day.
0:19:30 > 0:19:37They'd be shovelling hard to shift all this dusty, dirty material in.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40If you went forward and then started dragging the stuff towards you,
0:19:40 > 0:19:45you gotta be mindful that behind you is that hole,
0:19:45 > 0:19:47and it went directly into the fire.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51In fact, when I got the job,
0:19:51 > 0:19:53the foreman said if you had a problem up there
0:19:53 > 0:19:59and you felt yourself falling the main thing to hold onto was the drag
0:19:59 > 0:20:04cos that would stop you falling down the hole - it would cut across.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07It was a very physical job.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11Obviously, as you can appreciate, a dirty job. But I took to it.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15And although at first when I saw what I'd got to do,
0:20:15 > 0:20:21I wasn't too sure. I grew to like it, and I enjoyed the work in the end.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31Destructors reduced rubbish to a sterile ash.
0:20:31 > 0:20:36It was often used as a building material in Britain's post-war redevelopment.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45Even the heat produced from burning rubbish was exploited.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47It generated electricity.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53In Birmingham, it was used to charge the batteries on the dustcarts.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58It was an ingenious system with almost zero waste.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04Today, this would be considered a model of environmental awareness.
0:21:12 > 0:21:13But during the late Fifties,
0:21:13 > 0:21:17the mood in Britain was becoming less thrifty.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23In 1957, Prime Minister Harold MacMillan declared,
0:21:23 > 0:21:25Britain had never had it so good.
0:21:32 > 0:21:37There was consistent full employment and wages were rising fast.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47There's a kind of a euphoria about the idea that once again,
0:21:47 > 0:21:50there is going be money. And remember, it's not only the war.
0:21:50 > 0:21:52In the Thirties, there's been the Depression,
0:21:52 > 0:21:57there's been a sense of not much money around for most people,
0:21:57 > 0:21:59and the post-War period,
0:21:59 > 0:22:03there's a sense of optimism,
0:22:03 > 0:22:09a sense of new kinds of pleasure that can be purchased,
0:22:09 > 0:22:14new kinds of shopping. Record shops, fashion shops.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18Every little town gets a boutique or even two boutiques.
0:22:20 > 0:22:21As well as the new shops,
0:22:21 > 0:22:24there was a rapidly growing advertising industry.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28Packages became hoardings.
0:22:35 > 0:22:40Television began carrying commercials in 1955.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43Mothers Pride. Baked according to my own original recipe.
0:22:43 > 0:22:48Adverts encouraged people to shop for new things.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51One way this was done, was to convince shoppers
0:22:51 > 0:22:54that what was left over from before the war was now past it.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02Battered pans, toys, damaged bikes, tired clothes.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06If it was pre-war in late 1950's Britain, it was rubbish.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10Take a look at this.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19In 1960, the reporter John Morgan made a documentary claiming
0:23:19 > 0:23:23there was a crisis in British waste management.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26The refuse of a couple of days from one home.
0:23:26 > 0:23:31As a nation we produce, we create, 12 million tonnes of refuse
0:23:31 > 0:23:37every year, which means that you personally create 5 hundredweights.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39and so for that matter, I suppose, do I.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51Much of the swelling waste stream of post-war Britain
0:23:51 > 0:23:54was just being chucked in holes in the ground.
0:23:55 > 0:24:00Throughout history this has been the easiest way to dispose of rubbish.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03What has not been burnt, has always been buried.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09The actual landfill site is straight ahead of us,
0:24:09 > 0:24:14in that depression in the field. The entrance was on the main road
0:24:14 > 0:24:18and if the gate was locked you could get round it or over it,
0:24:18 > 0:24:22that sort of thing, so you couldn't really stop anyone coming in, no.
0:24:22 > 0:24:28Very limited fencing for protection on loose litter, very little.
0:24:28 > 0:24:34Fifty years ago, Mike Leeks managed a landfill here in Suffolk.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36Such sites were brought into being
0:24:36 > 0:24:39by the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act
0:24:39 > 0:24:41and were called "Controlled Tips".
0:24:42 > 0:24:46In reality, back in the early post-war period,
0:24:46 > 0:24:48there was very little control.
0:24:48 > 0:24:53It was just backed in the gate and they put a match to it and burnt it.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57Once it was on fire, it was on fire, basically nearly all the time.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00Just burnt, just burnt.
0:25:01 > 0:25:06You always had local people here scrounging and looking for stuff, yeah.
0:25:06 > 0:25:12Clothes, all sorts of things. Car batteries, copper cylinders.
0:25:12 > 0:25:13Even bottles in them days,
0:25:13 > 0:25:18you could get a few pence on a beer bottle, about 3p a bottle.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21You know, whatever they could get before it burnt.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25And then we used to come every ten days or so.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28We'd come over and push it all in
0:25:28 > 0:25:31and tidy it up ready for the next batch to be disposed of.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38A controlled tip was a highly flexible form of waste disposal.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41Almost anything could be buried in one.
0:25:42 > 0:25:49They also used to put in all the local sewerage from the septic tanks.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53It was all disposed of in here as well.
0:25:53 > 0:25:54Everything went in?
0:25:54 > 0:25:55Everything went in.
0:25:55 > 0:26:01Anything that was classed as a waste went in, even car bodies.
0:26:01 > 0:26:03All sorts of things like that.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09Controlled tips acquired an appalling reputation.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12No village wanted one anywhere near it.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17You feel it may be rather a disgrace to have a rubbish dump on your doorstep?
0:26:17 > 0:26:20Simply disgusting and filthy.
0:26:20 > 0:26:22And that's what it is we're down against,
0:26:22 > 0:26:25and we're not going to have it at our back doors at all.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28Eventually the rats and the flies and the smell
0:26:28 > 0:26:31and the smoke will spread all over the village.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37But in the Sixties, with the waste stream expanding rapidly,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40new tips were being planned and opened all the time.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45There were hundreds of them scattered across rural Britain.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57A rubbish dump in a beauty spot or a controlled tip in Engine Bottom.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00It would take a far more foolish man than myself to try
0:27:00 > 0:27:01and give the answer.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04If the countryside is going to be used generally to accommodate
0:27:04 > 0:27:08the refuse of towns, in about 30 years time,
0:27:08 > 0:27:12we shall be picnicking in all the muck we're not swimming in. Goodnight.
0:27:18 > 0:27:23By the 1960s, rubbish was becoming a health hazard.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26NEWSREEL: The problems arriving from refuse
0:27:26 > 0:27:30and the disposal of waste matter are more serious than ever before.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32In densely populated areas,
0:27:32 > 0:27:36this process can trigger off appalling hazards to health.
0:27:39 > 0:27:41Children, of course, don't understand.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45They walk innocently into dangers left lurking in their paths
0:27:45 > 0:27:46by unthinking adults.
0:27:50 > 0:27:52Behind this sanitation scare
0:27:52 > 0:27:56was another change in the composition of household rubbish.
0:27:59 > 0:28:01Back in the years of austerity,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04there had been almost no rotting food in household bins.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12Now, because of rising affluence and new consumption patterns,
0:28:12 > 0:28:17that was changing, as former dustman Jeremy Shields remembers well.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20People started buying from supermarkets once a week,
0:28:20 > 0:28:22or once a fortnight, they would buy stuff,
0:28:22 > 0:28:24it would go out of date, they would throw it away.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28Putrescible content, the food content typically of rubbish,
0:28:28 > 0:28:30was going up quite rapidly.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34During the Sixties, rotting matter
0:28:34 > 0:28:38became the second largest component of household rubbish.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42The bins would get dirty, there's no question about that
0:28:42 > 0:28:45and stuff would lodge in the bottom of bins and build up
0:28:45 > 0:28:49a matt of quite unpleasant material and, boy, did they stink.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57The metal dustbin, which dated back to the previous century,
0:28:57 > 0:29:00was no longer sanitary.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08NEWSREEL: Today, after three quarters of a century of faithful service,
0:29:08 > 0:29:11the dustbin is going into honourable retirement.
0:29:11 > 0:29:14Just as collection by horse and cart gave way to motorized collection,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17so the dustbin is making way for the plastic bag.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24Polythene was one of the many plastics that were invented
0:29:24 > 0:29:26in the mid-20th century.
0:29:26 > 0:29:30Its first popular use was for hula-hoops.
0:29:30 > 0:29:35Being lightweight and resilient, it was also an ideal bin bag.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39And as the rubbish of post-war Britain got smellier and dirtier,
0:29:39 > 0:29:43local authorities began to use polythene bags
0:29:43 > 0:29:46to collect household waste.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48People never, ever, came back and said,
0:29:48 > 0:29:52"I appreciate the fact that I don't get a smelly dirty bin bag once a week."
0:29:52 > 0:29:55But they stopped complaining about smelly dirty bins!
0:29:58 > 0:30:03Bin bags were also a symptom of the changing culture of waste management.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06They not only made it easier to throw things away,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09it was now much harder to recycle the rubbish.
0:30:10 > 0:30:15Once it's in closed, plastic sacks, that becomes much less practicable,
0:30:15 > 0:30:18because the first thing you've got to do is open all the sacks
0:30:18 > 0:30:20and get the contents out.
0:30:20 > 0:30:26So in a way, closing the rubbish in is a kind of one time activity
0:30:26 > 0:30:28and you will deal with the rubbish as one thing.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32As bin bags spread across Britain,
0:30:32 > 0:30:35out of almost 1,300 local authorities,
0:30:35 > 0:30:39all but 50 shut down their salvage systems.
0:30:43 > 0:30:45The recycling infrastructure,
0:30:45 > 0:30:49which had been built-up during the war, was now being dismantled.
0:30:54 > 0:30:57Waste management now had one overriding priority -
0:30:57 > 0:31:02move the rubbish as far from the doorstep, as fast as possible.
0:31:09 > 0:31:11Pleased to see us, a lot of people were, like.
0:31:11 > 0:31:13Because the people loved it,
0:31:13 > 0:31:17getting the rubbish out the way, "Thank God, it's gone." You know.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21People don't want rubbish hanging around their place, you know.
0:31:21 > 0:31:25Mel Clarke is Wolverhampton's longest-serving refuse collector.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29He's been collecting bins for over 40 years.
0:31:29 > 0:31:31There was loads of rubbish in those days.
0:31:31 > 0:31:34There was cans and bottles and all sorts that you can describe.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37Anything that you can name that they didn't want, we'd take it.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41We just came in our jeans.
0:31:41 > 0:31:45And then when the weather got hot, you could wear shorts, trainers.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48You know. No tops, some of the lads, whatever they felt comfortable in.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51There was no health and safety issues at all.
0:31:53 > 0:31:55But as the bin bag replaced the metal bin,
0:31:55 > 0:31:58collecting rubbish without protective clothing
0:31:58 > 0:32:00became dangerous.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03There was a few accidents as well, there was glass in bags and stuff.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06People didn't care what they put they put in the bin.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09They just put everything they could get in the thing, you know?
0:32:09 > 0:32:10In the bags at the side.
0:32:10 > 0:32:14There was one occasion when I was dragging the bags,
0:32:14 > 0:32:19and the glass from a broken bottle stabbed me in my leg.
0:32:19 > 0:32:24So that was a nasty thing that happened to me,, like, you know.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31Binmen were limping off to A&E.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34But, crucially, the doorsteps were wiped clean.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39And the growing unease that there was a flood of waste
0:32:39 > 0:32:41was averted for another week.
0:32:49 > 0:32:53These days, when the rubbish starts to pile up at home,
0:32:53 > 0:32:56it's time for a trip to the local dump.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06It's brilliant for everything we can bring in, yes.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08And it keeps your place tidy, doesn't it?
0:33:08 > 0:33:11Here, do you want one of these?
0:33:11 > 0:33:13Michael Jackson!
0:33:17 > 0:33:21In a sense, it's become like, not just a local service,
0:33:21 > 0:33:23I suppose, for some.
0:33:23 > 0:33:25You can bump into people like you would if you were going
0:33:25 > 0:33:27to any other local facility,
0:33:27 > 0:33:31like a shop or something, so it's quite nice.
0:33:31 > 0:33:36"Do you know, I bumped into my good friend while I was at the tip?"!
0:33:36 > 0:33:40Do you want Michael Jackson?! Going, going, gone!
0:33:42 > 0:33:44It's a bit too big, isn't it, as well?
0:33:44 > 0:33:46- Do you want Michael Jackson? - No thanks!
0:33:47 > 0:33:50Few who come to the dumps know about their origins.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54In fact, they date back to 1960s.
0:33:55 > 0:34:00This was when the waste management industry first found old furniture
0:34:00 > 0:34:02clogging up the waste stream.
0:34:08 > 0:34:13# Oh what a lovely surprise!
0:34:13 > 0:34:17# My turn to dream about, talk about,
0:34:17 > 0:34:21# Scheme about furniture for you... #
0:34:24 > 0:34:28In 1964, the first Habitat store opened in London.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34It was part of another new trend in post-war consumption.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45In the late Fifties, teenagers had differentiated themselves
0:34:45 > 0:34:47from their parents by new clothes.
0:34:48 > 0:34:53Now, ten years later, they were growing up and settling down.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57Their approach to homemaking was also a break from the past.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02It's the idea that everything needs to be new
0:35:02 > 0:35:05when you start your life, or your married life,
0:35:05 > 0:35:07it would have been at that time.
0:35:07 > 0:35:09When you get your own place, you have your own things.
0:35:09 > 0:35:13and those things, like with clothes,
0:35:13 > 0:35:16you won't be taking what you can from relatives,
0:35:16 > 0:35:19as sort of things that are handed down
0:35:19 > 0:35:22or things that have been in the family for generations.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35I can actually remember as a small kid seeing,
0:35:35 > 0:35:41I don't know if it was a cover or an inside page of woman's magazine,
0:35:41 > 0:35:47that had a mock demonstration with a housewife holding a placard,
0:35:47 > 0:35:49saying, "Old furniture must go".
0:35:51 > 0:35:54But in the mid-Sixties, the waste management industry
0:35:54 > 0:35:57was still entirely reliant on doorstep collection.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03This traditional approach simply couldn't cope with sofas and chairs.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09It is sometimes very difficult to get rid of awkward items.
0:36:09 > 0:36:10I mean, one puts them out with the dustbin
0:36:10 > 0:36:12and the dustmen won't take them away,
0:36:12 > 0:36:15and some councils charge, and sometimes quite a lot,
0:36:15 > 0:36:16for taking stuff away.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19Well, I think that is part of the cause of the problem.
0:36:19 > 0:36:23The authority that will not collect or makes a charge for it.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30Meanwhile, car ownership was rising.
0:36:30 > 0:36:35By 1967, over 20 percent of the population had access to a car.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49If you can't get someone to collect your ugly sofa,
0:36:49 > 0:36:54and you've got a vehicle, then there were problems around fly-tipping
0:36:54 > 0:36:59in local areas, countryside, in the vicinity of towns,
0:36:59 > 0:37:06which were often expensive to clean up and, of course, quite an eyesore,
0:37:06 > 0:37:10particularly as once fly-tipping starts in an area,
0:37:10 > 0:37:12it tends to attract more fly-tipping.
0:37:12 > 0:37:16Some of this is obviously from the householder.
0:37:16 > 0:37:22The slipper shoes. The metal stuff is probably from diddycoys,
0:37:22 > 0:37:26a sort of gypsy who are itinerants, usually deal in metal.
0:37:30 > 0:37:35So, in 1967, the government passed the Civic Amenity Act.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39It introduced fines for fly-tipping.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42And all local authorities were ordered provide a site
0:37:42 > 0:37:46where the public to could safely dispose of unwanted furniture.
0:37:46 > 0:37:47A dump.
0:37:55 > 0:37:57This is the back end.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01This wall here now is the old original wall of the council yard.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04The entrance is just up there.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06Nigel Harrison and Dave Doidge
0:38:06 > 0:38:10ran one of Britain's original council dumps.
0:38:10 > 0:38:12That's what's left of the old yard.
0:38:12 > 0:38:17As you can see, some lovely old buildings there. Bit overgrown now.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23For over a century, it had been standard practice to collect rubbish
0:38:23 > 0:38:24from the doorstep.
0:38:26 > 0:38:30But now the public brought their rubbish to this yard themselves.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34The dump was nothing less than a revolution in waste management.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38And it was just four little skips, dumped in the yard
0:38:38 > 0:38:42where people could come in and just dump their rubbish. That's right.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44In the winter, we used to have a big brazier going,
0:38:44 > 0:38:48we used to take wood out the skip, burn that, pour a bit of oil on it,
0:38:48 > 0:38:51set fire to that. Because there was no heating, like here now.
0:38:51 > 0:38:53There was no facilities as such.
0:38:53 > 0:38:55You just stood outside, people would come in and you were just,
0:38:55 > 0:38:58"Yeah, what have you got? Household? Dump it in there."
0:39:00 > 0:39:03Within a few years of the Civic Amenity Act,
0:39:03 > 0:39:07the fly-tipping scandal of the late 1960s had faded.
0:39:08 > 0:39:13The dumps also exposed a shocking truth about the values of modern Britain.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19You could be standing here one day
0:39:19 > 0:39:22and you'd get somebody smash their Grandfather clock up.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24Somebody may have smashed up a grand piano.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29And they'd dump... Grandma had died, they'd dump the pictures, everything.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31Everything just came out the cupboards
0:39:31 > 0:39:34and went straight down the tip.
0:39:34 > 0:39:38It would have been the time, if you had foresight,
0:39:38 > 0:39:43to be able to find some really nice antiques!
0:39:46 > 0:39:50Antiques were out of fashion in the late Sixties.
0:39:50 > 0:39:55People wanted spaces that were well-proportioned and open-plan.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01It was ironic that achieving this uncluttered modernity
0:40:01 > 0:40:04involved creating ever more waste.
0:40:15 > 0:40:20The wastefulness of modern life was starkly revealed in Birmingham.
0:40:21 > 0:40:26The centrepiece of its post-war redevelopment was a new city centre,
0:40:26 > 0:40:30the Bull Ring, which opened in 1964.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33NEWSREEL: Oil-fired central heating and air conditioning
0:40:33 > 0:40:37maintains a pleasant, late-spring atmosphere all year round.
0:40:38 > 0:40:41The Bullring had clean lines and wipe-down surfaces.
0:40:41 > 0:40:42But in fact,
0:40:42 > 0:40:46it was a machine for generating thousands of tons of rubbish.
0:40:46 > 0:40:48NEWSREEL: A boat show in the centre court
0:40:48 > 0:40:50marks the opening of the new precinct,
0:40:50 > 0:40:56which includes over 100 individual shops in its 35,00 square feet.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59Birmingham proudly claims that no other city can match
0:40:59 > 0:41:01the Bullring anywhere in the world.
0:41:05 > 0:41:10Birmingham's waste management system was creaking under the strain.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16For a hundred years, the city's destructors had burnt rubbish
0:41:16 > 0:41:18to generate electricity.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21They'd been the heart of a collection and disposal system
0:41:21 > 0:41:24that minimised waste.
0:41:24 > 0:41:27But that meant little to the new head of waste management
0:41:27 > 0:41:31in the city, a local GP and influential councillor.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35Dr Katie Rogers. She was newly appointed
0:41:35 > 0:41:39as the Chairman of the West Midlands waste disposal committee
0:41:39 > 0:41:43and she wanted to see all the waste disposal plants.
0:41:43 > 0:41:47and as she was walking alongside the furnaces,
0:41:47 > 0:41:52which were being raked out manually, an aerosol can flew out.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56The whole point of the destructor was to reduce rubbish to ash.
0:41:56 > 0:42:01But an aerosol can didn't burn in the furnace. It became a bomb.
0:42:01 > 0:42:06It just flew out of the incinerator. It came out at quite a rapid rate,
0:42:06 > 0:42:09and nearly hit her. She just sat calmly and said,
0:42:09 > 0:42:12"I'm not happy with my workers working in those conditions,
0:42:12 > 0:42:14"I want something done about it quickly."
0:42:16 > 0:42:19Birmingham promptly closed all destructors.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26Never again would Joe Wainwright stand beside an open furnace.
0:42:28 > 0:42:33I can see the reason why the council at that time wanted to improve
0:42:33 > 0:42:35the conditions for the workers.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39So I can understand the reasoning to go forward and hopefully build
0:42:39 > 0:42:44a better way of incinerating rubbish for the benefit of everyone.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53The city turned to a new generation of furnaces
0:42:53 > 0:42:54called mass-burn incinerators.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59They were vast and completely automated.
0:43:00 > 0:43:04To improve cleanliness and productivity, rubbish was no longer
0:43:04 > 0:43:10hand-sorted for recyclables. There wasn't even electricity generation.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13Everything just went up in smoke.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Personally I quite enjoyed the new environment I went into,
0:43:19 > 0:43:24compared to the one I had spent three and a half years doing.
0:43:24 > 0:43:28We used to joke that, in comparison, it was like going to work
0:43:28 > 0:43:31in a collar and tie compared to what we did before.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37By the end of the 1960s, the age of the destructor was over.
0:43:44 > 0:43:48Meanwhile the waste stream continued to change and expand.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52Because it wasn't just the waste management industry that was gripped
0:43:52 > 0:43:56by enthusiasm for whatever was the latest thing.
0:43:56 > 0:44:00In everyday life, what would once have been considered still new,
0:44:00 > 0:44:02rapidly felt too old.
0:44:07 > 0:44:09And the people with their foot on the gas,
0:44:09 > 0:44:12were often the producers of goods.
0:44:14 > 0:44:16They'd learned that they could increase sales
0:44:16 > 0:44:20by speeding up the rate at which their products appeared outdated.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24This was called planned obsolescence -
0:44:24 > 0:44:29a phrase coined by the industrial designer, Brooks Stevens.
0:44:29 > 0:44:34You became linked with a very controversial phrase,
0:44:34 > 0:44:35"planned obsolescence".
0:44:35 > 0:44:38I wondered when we would get to that.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40Remember, planned obsolescence...
0:44:40 > 0:44:41You came up with the phrase?
0:44:41 > 0:44:46I came up with the phrase one night in the Radisson Hotel in Minneapolis.
0:44:46 > 0:44:50I had to speak the next day before combined advertising agencies
0:44:50 > 0:44:53and the Rotary Club up there.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56So I was trying to think of a catchy title.
0:44:56 > 0:44:59So I said, "planned obsolescence", then defined it -
0:44:59 > 0:45:04the desire to own something a little newer, a little better.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08Remember better. A little sooner than is necessary.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15Today, planned obsolescence is a derogatory phrase.
0:45:15 > 0:45:17It's seen as a trick
0:45:17 > 0:45:20played by producers on their unwitting customers.
0:45:27 > 0:45:31But back in the '60s, it was presented as progress.
0:45:31 > 0:45:34This was something that would benefit society.
0:45:36 > 0:45:42It was perceived as good way of maintaining prosperity.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45You've got to keep people buying a new car every two years,
0:45:45 > 0:45:46or a new fridge,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49so I don't think there was anything hidden in it
0:45:49 > 0:45:51or conspiratorial, necessarily,
0:45:51 > 0:45:56I think it was a means of ensuring the economy was healthy
0:45:56 > 0:45:59because production meant people were in work.
0:46:04 > 0:46:08But planned obsolescence contributed to yet another unprecedented problem
0:46:08 > 0:46:11for the waste management industry.
0:46:11 > 0:46:13Now, dustmen were being asked
0:46:13 > 0:46:17to collect and dispose of old TVs and fridges.
0:46:21 > 0:46:26From the back end, modernity just looked messier and messier.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32This machine just keeps packing and packing.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34This was the best refuse vehicle ever built.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40The Revopak dustcart was introduced in 1971.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54Revopak is a dustman's best friend.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57Its enormously powerful teeth
0:46:57 > 0:46:59will crush and digest anything on the menu.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06Former dustman Steve Jones worked with a Revopak,
0:47:06 > 0:47:09and has now restored one of his old dustcarts.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13This is how we done it when I was on the dust.
0:47:16 > 0:47:18The hydraulic powered steel rake
0:47:18 > 0:47:22compacted bulky rubbish to one-fifth of its size,
0:47:22 > 0:47:25so the Revopak carried five times as much waste
0:47:25 > 0:47:27as conventional dustcarts.
0:47:29 > 0:47:31The sheer simplicity in it.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35You just threw it in, it done the job for you.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38As you can see, this is bulky waste
0:47:38 > 0:47:42and it's just tearing it to pieces, it's unrecognisable now.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44And that's made of steel.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49The design of the Revopak
0:47:49 > 0:47:53reveals how recycling, once integral to waste management,
0:47:53 > 0:47:54was now almost irrelevant.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59In those days, we had no sorting of waste whatsoever.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02Everything was co-mingled, crushed in the back.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05That as the way it was, that was the way of the world.
0:48:07 > 0:48:12By the '70s, the recycling rate had fallen to less than 3%.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18I've put hundreds of these through one of these in my time on the bins!
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Didn't I tell you that this would crush anything?
0:48:34 > 0:48:38In one promotional film, the Revopak was shown compacting a fridge.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49We put a piano through one once. Took three of us to lift it.
0:48:49 > 0:48:52A boiler, beds, three-pieces,
0:48:52 > 0:48:56kitchen appliances, televisions - anything they wanted to get rid of.
0:49:04 > 0:49:09During the '70s, the volume of waste grew by as much as 5% a year.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15Nearly every local authority switched to Revopaks.
0:49:15 > 0:49:17Almost all the nation's waste stream
0:49:17 > 0:49:21flowed through these steel jaws.
0:49:21 > 0:49:23You could actually put a house through one of these,
0:49:23 > 0:49:25including the roof trusses.
0:49:32 > 0:49:34That's a Dennis Olympus...
0:49:36 > 0:49:38..for wheeled bins and recycling.
0:49:38 > 0:49:40They all know me. He does my house.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48By the mid-'70s,
0:49:48 > 0:49:52every week in Britain, almost half a million tonnes of rubbish
0:49:52 > 0:49:55was carted off in a compacted slurry
0:49:55 > 0:49:57and poured out onto the local tip.
0:50:03 > 0:50:04The waste management industry
0:50:04 > 0:50:08had once helped Britons contain the waste stream.
0:50:08 > 0:50:10Now it was opening the floodgates.
0:50:13 > 0:50:15SEAGULLS CAW
0:50:16 > 0:50:20This is a film about the spreading wastelands of the western world,
0:50:20 > 0:50:22the wastelands of abundance.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27The reporter Trevor Philpott made a documentary
0:50:27 > 0:50:31criticising the wastefulness of the consumer society.
0:50:34 > 0:50:36Consumption has become holy.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40The big consumer has become the true brother, the faithful, the patriot
0:50:40 > 0:50:42and year by year,
0:50:42 > 0:50:45more of the nation's effort is made to be thrown away.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54Post-war prosperity had led to a spending boom,
0:50:54 > 0:50:58which had created more jobs and higher wages,
0:50:58 > 0:51:01and so more spending, and so on.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07Planned obsolescence had then suggested
0:51:07 > 0:51:11how this consumption-led economic growth could go on for ever.
0:51:16 > 0:51:20No matter how much stuff people bought, they would keep on shopping
0:51:20 > 0:51:23as long as they regarded what they already owned as old rubbish.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29It was claimed this would lead to endlessly rising prosperity.
0:51:32 > 0:51:37But some saw this economic model as piling up mountains of waste.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46We can now make more of practically everything
0:51:46 > 0:51:48than we can ever possibly hope to use.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52And to prosper, we must become a race of massive consumers,
0:51:52 > 0:51:53wasting to live.
0:51:55 > 0:52:00Only 20 years before, Britons had been encouraged to make do and mend.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04People had really thought about what they put in the bin.
0:52:06 > 0:52:11At the heart of the consumer society was a completely different mindset.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16It's a shift at a psychological level, for sure,
0:52:16 > 0:52:19because you're involved in this process
0:52:19 > 0:52:21where the bin outside your door just becomes...
0:52:21 > 0:52:24It's a bit like the toilet that you flush.
0:52:24 > 0:52:26You flush something, it disappears
0:52:26 > 0:52:28so you can't smell it, you can't see it.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30I think it functions in that kind of way.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33It's outside your house
0:52:33 > 0:52:36and it's there to take your excess.
0:53:02 > 0:53:03Then, in the late 1970s,
0:53:03 > 0:53:08the wastefulness of modernity became suddenly apparent to all.
0:53:10 > 0:53:12Because the dustmen went on strike.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21In the first few weeks of 1979,
0:53:21 > 0:53:25Britain's streets became overrun with rotting rubbish.
0:53:31 > 0:53:32Yeah, I was involved in it.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35It was getting quite worrying in some areas, you know.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38They were getting piles of stuff and it was coming out onto the road.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41We did actually come in on some occasions
0:53:41 > 0:53:43and just clear the worst areas,
0:53:43 > 0:53:47even though we were supposed to be taking industrial action.
0:53:47 > 0:53:51They didn't really like being out on strike.
0:53:51 > 0:53:53It wasn't good.
0:53:53 > 0:53:55And wouldn't want to go there again.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59Mick Wright was a shop steward during the strike.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04Like many dustman, he felt they had no choice.
0:54:04 > 0:54:06Inflation was running at 8%,
0:54:06 > 0:54:09and their wages weren't rising in line with it.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11We were faced with a pay freeze
0:54:11 > 0:54:13when everybody else was getting pay rises.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15We knew that Ford workers, for instance,
0:54:15 > 0:54:18were getting quite large pay increases,
0:54:18 > 0:54:20yet the government was saying to us we couldn't have any.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23That's what caused the strike, really.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26This dispute was initially seen
0:54:26 > 0:54:30as a further symptom of a wider economic crisis.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34But in a consumer society, a refuse collection strike
0:54:34 > 0:54:38exposes the shocking truth about the way people are living.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45It takes an event like the dustmen's strike,
0:54:45 > 0:54:48for example, of the late '70s, to bring it all back into view
0:54:48 > 0:54:52and that fact that if you stop working on removing this stuff,
0:54:52 > 0:54:55even for a couple of days,
0:54:55 > 0:54:58you pretty soon get a sense that you could be overrun by it.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01The amount of waste, it just showed
0:55:01 > 0:55:04how much was being thrown away and discarded by people.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10Bob Seear was at the heart of the biggest controversy of the dustmen strike.
0:55:12 > 0:55:14He ran an emergency dump.
0:55:14 > 0:55:18People were invited to bring their rubbish to him
0:55:18 > 0:55:20rather than leave it on the doorstep.
0:55:20 > 0:55:25His dump was right in the heart of London, in Leicester Square.
0:55:28 > 0:55:32It was the whole square. I mean, we started at this end,
0:55:32 > 0:55:36cos the theatre booth wasn't there in those days,
0:55:36 > 0:55:38and it was just brought in, walked in
0:55:38 > 0:55:41and just gradually built up as the weeks went by.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45People just came along by hand, in barrows, in vans
0:55:45 > 0:55:48and just brought their rubbish here and dumped it.
0:56:00 > 0:56:04Bob's dump in one of the nation's most iconic spaces
0:56:04 > 0:56:07became a major news story.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10Its vile growth was reported with glee.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13It started small,
0:56:13 > 0:56:16but rather like the story of Jack and the Beanstalk,
0:56:16 > 0:56:20it grew, and it grew, and it grew.
0:56:27 > 0:56:32It was a mountain of rubbish, almost to the canopy of those trees.
0:56:32 > 0:56:34It was an incredible sight.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37Maggots, rotting food, rotting waste.
0:56:37 > 0:56:39it's got a smell of its own.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44It smelt horrendously. It was a totally uncontrolled waste dump.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51The dustmen's strike lasted five weeks, and after it,
0:56:51 > 0:56:54the waste management industry would never be the same again.
0:56:57 > 0:56:59Critics of the consumer society
0:56:59 > 0:57:02had accused it of building a mountain of waste.
0:57:02 > 0:57:06What happened in Leicester Square seemed to prove them right.
0:57:08 > 0:57:09Undoubtedly, people realised
0:57:09 > 0:57:12that there was a problem in the country as a whole
0:57:12 > 0:57:15and they wanted to relook at everything they were doing.
0:57:22 > 0:57:24But by the late '70s,
0:57:24 > 0:57:29the throwaway mindset had been ruling Britain for a generation
0:57:29 > 0:57:34and wastefulness is a habit that's easy to learn, but hard to forget.
0:57:41 > 0:57:45LAUGHTER AND CHEERING
0:57:45 > 0:57:47Next week, this series concludes
0:57:47 > 0:57:50with the story of the rubbish revolution
0:57:50 > 0:57:52sparked by the dustmen's strike.
0:57:52 > 0:57:56We took a fairly pessimistic view about human nature in those days.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06They used to call me, in the first few years,
0:58:06 > 0:58:08the King of the Wheelie Bins.
0:58:08 > 0:58:09This is what you get
0:58:09 > 0:58:12when you throw bins on your shoulders year, in year out.
0:58:12 > 0:58:14Everyone's got a muscle there
0:58:14 > 0:58:16but I suppose when you're lifting,
0:58:16 > 0:58:18it just gets bigger.
0:58:18 > 0:58:22We were shifting 20-30 tonnes a day, and that's a lot of waste.
0:58:47 > 0:58:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd