Waste time with angry Hugh

ACCORDING to figures quoted in this programme, the average family disposes of £700 worth of food every year and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall thinks it's high time that came to an end. As a result, he confronts shoppers in a supermarket, armed with a wheelie bin, and attempts to take their shopping off them before they have even left the store.

He’s also got two new massive corporate targets in his sights. This time he’s taking on Amazon, for the amount of packaging it produces and the coffee shop giants, Starbucks, Costa, and Caffe Nero, for a recycling scandal that most of us never even knew existed. In the UK, it's likely throw away a staggering 2.5 billion cardboard coffee cups every year. But our growing caffeine addiction brings with it a dark secret. Virtually none of these discarded cups end up being recycled, with almost all heading for landfill or incineration.

Hugh discovers that part of the reason for this is that most people assume that their coffee cups do get recycled – and don’t even know that there is a problem. Internet shoppers know the frustrations of excess packaging, and when Hugh asks his online supporters who the worst offender is, the answer’s clear: it’s Amazon.

Hugh’s hoping that he can build on the successes his battle against food waste is having on the supermarkets. Last year he uncovered the shocking amounts of food that was being thrown away on British farms because their produce didn’t fit the supermarkets’ strict cosmetic standards. But since 300,000 people signed his pledge to end this waste, all of the major supermarkets have taken steps to increase the amount of imperfect veg they now sell – some of them introducing brand new ‘wonky' ranges designed to get people engaged with the issue, and others deciding to relax their general cosmetic standards across some veg lines.

And the UK’s biggest food redistribution charity, Fareshare, has told Hugh that since his last programmes went out, donations to them have increased by a staggering 60 per cent.

After weeks of chasing Amazon, Hugh finally gets access to one of its biggest UK distribution centres and meets its global packaging expert from America. But when the coffee giants seem shy of coming forward to tackle their waste crisis, Hugh takes to the streets in a coffee cup covered battle bus – and the issue suddenly goes viral.

Full Steam Ahead (BBC2, 8pm)

HISTORIANS Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn continue to relive the golden age of steam and how the Victorian railways created modern Britain. They visit Beamish in County Durham, finding out how the rail companies first realised there was money to be made in moving people rather than commodities. Then Peter and Alex find out what life was like for the navvies, the men who built the thousands of miles of tracks in all weather conditions, and Ruth finds out what impact the new railroads had on the cottage industries. She also learns about the role of the guard, and the trio learn what precautions were necessary for taking a long journey on a train that was yet to include the necessary facilities.

Brexit – What's Your House Worth?: Tonight (ITV, 8.30pm)

HOUSE prices in Britain have been on the up and up for many years, to such an extent that people are now struggling to get on the property ladder – something not helped by the difficulties involved in getting a mortgage. But there are those who think that the recent vote to leave the European Union could change all that, as house prices tumble, making them affordable once again. But, as this programme reveals, there is a downside to that – those lucky enough to already be homeowners must face the fact that suddenly, their properties are worth less than they cost to buy them.

Viv Hardwick