Channel 4 preps reality 'Dumped'

Networks greenlights show with green focus

By STEVE CLARKE

LONDON -- U.K. web Channel 4 hopes to boost its green credentials and win ratings with a new reality skein emphasizing recycling in which 10 Brits attempt to live on a rubbish dump for three weeks.

The trash challenge, "Dumped," involves the 10 having to exist entirely on stuff from other people's junk.

Everything they eat, wear, shelter under or use -- including the TV -- will have to come from other people's trash.

Andrew Mackenzie, commissioning editor, factual entertainment, said, "Some of the tasks may be pretty gross, but in compensation the participants will find that even the finer things of life can be catered for -- with the perfectly-useable luxury goods that get thrown away."

Stripped across a week and for screening this fall, C4 announced "Dumped" as its launched its spring schedule.

The spring season features two new U.S. shows "Brothers & Sisters," described by station content topper Kevin Lygo as "the new 'ER,'" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

Homegrown fare includes Iraq war drama "The Mark of Cain," written by noted Brit TV dramatist Tony Marchant, and "Wedding Belles," a black comedy created by Irvine Welsh ("Trainspotting") and screenwriter Dean Cavanagh.

There is also a new documentary from the much-feted helmer Molly Dineen. She returns to British TV following a lengthy absence with a film exploring the decimation of the U.K.'s farming industry, "The Lie of The Land."