Created by Carthew Neal Country of origin New Zealand No. of episodes 20 Final episode date 8 April 2008 Program creator Carthew Neal | Theme music composer Jed Town No. of seasons 2 First episode date 20 February 2007 Network Three Genre Reality television | |
Presented by Francesca Price
Tristan Glendinning Similar Eco Company, Bigger - Better - Faster - St, Growing a Greener World, Outrageous Fortune, The Insider's Guide To | ||
Wa$ted! is a New Zealand reality television series which shows families their impact on the environment and helps them to become greener in their daily lives. The show has been acclaimed as the first show of its type. Even in production, they reduce their impact on the earth by using hybrid cars, crew carpooling, and reusing props.
Contents
The series shown in 15 countries outside of New Zealand. Wa$ted was also produced as a television show in the United States, Canada, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, and Malaysia.
Format
The show starts with Francesca and Tristan returning one year's worth of rubbish to the family. From here, they filter through the rubbish with the family to show them what they could have recycled and what environmental impact their rubbish is doing. Taking into account rubbish, electricity, water, and transportation, an ecological footprint is calculated to show how much land it would take to provide the resources for their household. They also calculate how many tones of carbon dioxide the family would emit in a year, comparing it to the national average (in New Zealand its 2.5 tones per person per year).
Francesca and Tristan then help the family reduce their environmental impact. Recycling and food scrap systems are implemented and followed by dealing with heating, power consumption, water consumption, and transportation. This includes a section called Tristan's Test where Tristan tests their knowledge (usually the children) of what environment impact a simple task can do.
After completing the tasks of reducing the household impact, Francesca and Tristan leave for three weeks to watch how good the families are at using the new systems. They promise to project forward any savings the family makes in those three weeks for one year and give those savings back in cash. On their return, Francesca and Tristan reveal how much the family's household footprint and carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced. Francesca then opens a green bucket, containing the savings they would have produced over a year, and gives the cash to the family.
Differences in Season One
In season one the carbon dioxide emissions and Tristan's test were not used.