First came the challenge of the production office. Normal biros were replaced with pens made out of recycled plastic, masking tape was replaced with a plastic free version, they even found a biodegradable bubble wrap. People were also confronted with their habits, the most popular lunch place in the office is a Chinese street food restaurant near the office which serves in takeaway boxes that contain plastic. Realising there’s no need to deprive themselves, the team started bringing in their own tupperware to take to the restaurant instead. “Once we identified the plastic we were using it was fairly easy to find a solution, it just took a bit of habit changing. When you get used to it you don’t think anything of it.” said the Production Manager, Stella Stylianos. Were there any negatives? “Plastic free masking tape is not the most efficient… but needs must!”
In fact the only pieces of single use plastic that were used in the production were on screen. albert went down to a shoot for the final episode of the series – where Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall returns to the same street to issue a call to arms on plastic use – to see how the editorial content of the programme had affected the crew.
