Welcome to the Dump
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The bus was waiting and the atmosphere was a mixture of excitement and nervousness.
On the bus the group talked about themselves. Selena revealed she is soon to become a grandmother for the second time and Jarvis mentions that his girlfriend is nine weeks pregnant and he hopes out loud she'll be OK while he is away.
All the windows of the bus were blacked out, and as the journey continued, more and more doubts began to set in over their final destination. It became apparent that they had been driving for too long to be on their way to Gatwick. But where in the UK were they headed for?
Oh no, not Croydon!
The answer was … Croydon! At about 2pm the bus pulled into the entrance of one of the UK's largest waste management sites. Lawrence, Aaron and Sasha were the first off the bus and immediately Sasha was almost in tears as the grim reality of their dump predicament set in. Aaron looked gutted and tried to clamber back on the bus. As the others piled off the bus there was a general feeling of disbelief. This was definitely not the Amazon rainforest!
Watch Video: Arriving at the Dump >
The group were in the middle of 1,000 tonnes of waste on their own specially constructed dump. Directly next door, towering over their dump was an active landfill site of 700,000 tonnes of south London's waste - never-ending trucks, noisy seagulls and a dreadful stench.
Just to hammer home the message, eco-design expert Rob Holdway re-appeared to announce that this would be there home for the next three weeks.
Student Aaron was still in shock, and began to question what the point of the challenge is: 'What does this achieve? We spend three weeks, we live off other people's shit. People aren't gonna go 'Brilliant, I'm gonna go out for three weeks and live on a landfill.''
But Selena, who prides herself on her green credentials, was defiant about the challenge that awaits them: 'I think it's a bloody good idea. I really do. It will teach people a lesson. Some people are under the impression that they don't want to be living in this shit and I'm just thinking 'Well, it's your shit mate, you dumped it, live with it''.
Engineer Ian rationalises and looks forward to the challenge: 'Coming out was a bit of an eye opener. I reckon we've got a good challenge but there will be some people that's gonna find it tough.'
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