With COP26 just around the corner, broadcasters are packing schedules with environmentally conscious content.

And there are very different ways to go about it, as Sunday night showed. While the BBC went maximum earnest with po-faced awards ceremony The Earthshot Prize – in which a performance by Coldplay was considered the ‘fun’ part – Channel 4 took a different tack.

Celebrity Trash Monsters: What’s Your Waste Size? (Channel 4, 17 October, 9pm) hosted by Jon Richardson, saw three famous faces wear suits made from bin bags full of their household waste for two weeks, in an entertaining bid to shame them into change.

Jodie Kidd, Kerry Katona and John Barnes were dressed up in their own rubbish, given a carbon footprint of their waste, and challenged to change their wasteful ways.

The stench of the suits really came through the screen thanks to Katona’s visceral descriptions. Her family was the worst planetary offender given their penchant for delivered takeaways. “Oh my god I stink,” Katona said, batting away flies as her family refused to let her sit and eat with them.

Barnes is a bit of a compulsive shopper, overbuying on groceries, which he attempted to cut down on. Kidd’s family are big meat eaters, adding to her footprint, so they tried some vegetarian options at home and at the pub she runs.

Despite some tips, the show was mostly lacking in advice. But it did do an excellent, and probably more effective, job by near literally rubbing our faces in the earth-harming filth we create every day.

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