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Were they living on a real landfill site?

The programme was filmed at the Beddington Farm landfill and recycling site on the outskirts of Croydon. The patch of land they were living on was right next to the active landfill itself. It would have been impossible to live on top of the current landfill site because of the dangers posed by the gases that landfill sites emit. But the group were close enough so that the view from their dump was dominated by the looming landfill next to it and there was a constant stream of lorries and trucks delivering and dumping rubbish six days a week.

To enable the group to live there, the production team were given special permission by the Environment Agency to create their own dump out of real rubbish. All the rubbish on the dump was genuine waste. Before dumping began, a specially engineered clay pad was laid down on top of the land to ensure that the ground would not be contaminated by any of the rubbish.

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