There has been a certain amount of drift on the thread, but it does highlight an important (well, obviously to us) point that there is a certain hypocrisy in the morals the west has concerning eco living and consumerism, and especially the Guardian reading ecogensia, where sops such as this programme and those of its ilk are employed to make us feel different from the way we actually behave.
I try not to buy from shops like Matalan, and try to keep off the consumerism tradmill as much as possible. Much of my stuff comes from ebay, but I have friends, people who would consider themselves green, or green-leaning, who are all left leaning and are concerned about workers rights etc, and yet are happy to have an iphone each and an ipad, and who buy clothes week after week at knock down prices from places like Matalan, conveniently pushing aside all the real issues of where these things come from and the havoc they wreak in other people's lives and the environment.
I try to keep off the consumerist treadmill as much as possible (don't buy from the worst of the supermarkets, get stuff off ebay and all the rest) but yes there are electronic products in my house which will come from these places, and most of the cotton clothes I get from whereever will have a trail of tears behind them. I am a hypocrite, it is true, but when you're in the system, as most of us are, in the most part, it is impossible not to be.
Getting back to the prpgramme, I do think it highlights what a gulf there is between soft ecological commitments and actually doing any real good for the planet.
And the greatest irony is, I suppose, if the viewing public actually followed the example of these kinds of programmes, then the countryside would be ripped bare by hoards of foragers, all looking for the last snails and the last mussels and the last rabbit to catch and kill and put in the pot.
Perhaps it's better that no one takes any real notice.