Sunday night, I happened just by chance to catch the preview of the show \”Dumped\” on BBC America. The premise of the show is thus: They take 11 people, tell them they\’re going to be on a reality show, then drop them off at a local landfill – where they have to live on the stuff in the dump for three weeks. They pitch it as an environmental show, meant to show how much stuff people throw away, and how it can be re-used. But, of course, everyone knows it\’s just a chance to see people digging around in the rancid chicken bones you threw away.

I have decided that this is a fantastic show, for the following reason:

The opening episode features a guy covered in tattoos who likes the feel of fresh underwear and socks. As a result, he buys new underwear and socks every day, then throws them away at the end of the day. That\’s right – he\’s throwing away 365 pair of underwear a year, which makes him, by the standards of this eco-friendly show, the most evil person alive.

I represent the opposite end of the spectrum. As my wife often points out, I hang on to underwear long past its prime. My boxers can only be pried out of my hands once there is nothing but an elastic waistband remaining – and retrieval usually has to be done by a Haz Mat team. So by this standard, I have now become a friend of the environment. My threadbare drawers are going to single-handedly eradicate global warming. (My wife would argue that most of my underwear \”turned green\” long ago. Heh.)

Anyway, it is interesting to see a reminder of how much trash we throw out in a day. One of these days, I\’m going to set aside a weekend to figure out how to shoot all that crap into space in a cost-effective manner.