Miniseries

When Ernie Sharp started on the bins in 1947, household rubbish was mostly ash raked out of the fire-grate. But as Britain transitioned from 'make do and mend' to a consumer society in the 1960s, discarded packaging turned the waste stream into a flood.

In the 1970s and 1980s, privatisation came for the public refuse collection services. Environmentalism led to the world's first bottle bank, but the waste stream continued to expand.