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Something new is happening
on planet Earth,

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big enough to be seen from space.

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Hot spots, buzzing with the energy
of millions of people.

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For the first time in human history,
more of us live in cities
than in the country.

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But these are cities
on a different scale.

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In just 50 years,
we've seen the birth, the growth

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and now the dominance
of the megacity.

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Sprawling, seething, noisy,
polluted,

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crammed with 10 million, 15,
sometimes even 30 million people.

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These cities are complicated,
fragile places,

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constantly on the edge.

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These are places
of overcrowded squalor.

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But these are also the most exciting
places on the earth.

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Brim with optimism and fun
and energy.

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Hey!
HE GRUNTS

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Love them or loathe them,
fear them or embrace them,

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the megacities are the human future
of the planet.

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We have, at the last count,

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created 21 of these
extraordinary urban sprawls.

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Pulsing and beating entities,
giant organisms in their own right.

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And these cities
and our experience of them

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is shaped by how
we move around them.

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Total chaos!
I would call it anarchy,

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but that would be extremely unfair
on anarchists.

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In this film, I'm going to be asking
how our megacities can survive

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without having
a colossal heart attack.

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Motorways, the freeways,
the railways below us

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are the veins and the arteries.

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But all round the world,
these arteries are getting
clogged up and congested.

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They're gobbling ever more
resources...

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That's some cow!

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..and dumping grotesque amounts
of waste.

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So, how does the metropolis
deal with all the stuff
its people don't want?

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Solid fat!

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Now I want to wipe my nose
but, on the whole, I think I won't.

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And what length do people go to

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to stop the modern metropolis
from drowning in its own excess?

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It's unimaginable,
what he's just lowered himself into.

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Why are our great cities
where they are

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and why are they the shape they are?

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All around the world,

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you see the same pattern.

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Coastlines and river mouths.

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And there's no mystery

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in why the great cities love to
dangle their feet in the water.

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Because throughout history,

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sea lanes and rivers
were the original superhighways

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and even today, it's transport -
that basic need to get in and out -

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that shapes and stretches

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and sometimes even strangles
the cities of the world.

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How to move millions of people
around a megacity 24 hours a day,

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without bringing the place
to a shuddering halt

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and without literally
choking its citizens to death,

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is one of the major challenges
we will face in the 21st century.

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I'm starting this journey
in one of the poorest,

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most chaotic and overcrowded cities
of them all -

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Dhaka in Bangladesh.

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There's simply no money for fancy
subways or slick freeways here.

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And with a population of 13 million,
and rising, to shunt around,

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Dhaka is feeling the squeeze.

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People still have to move around.
Whatever it takes.

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And it's hot, intense
and rather dangerous.

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Every great city depends entirely
on its transport system.

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But if there's one choke point
all round the world,
it's the morning rush hour,

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when millions upon millions
of people

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struggle to get to their jobs

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and, seemingly, will do
almost anything to make it in.

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The megacities are the most
extreme example of this,

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and the poorer ones
the most extreme of the extreme.

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There are so many people trying
to move around this dense city

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that it feels like there isn't
a rush hour, because the entire day
is one massive rush hour.

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A rush day.

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With just two train lines
to serve a population
the same size as London's,

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and only one major highway,

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the result is predictable mayhem.

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So, how can you get around a city
of 13 million people effectively?

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Actually, it's using one of the most
primitive modes of modern transport,

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pedal power.

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Because Dhaka is
the rickshaw capital of the world.

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Noisy, stinking, slow

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and extremely dangerous.

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CAR HORNS BEEP

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But for most people around the world

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this is the reality
of urban transport,

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not some dinky high-speed train.

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There are well over half a million
rickshaws in downtown Dhaka,

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that's roughly one
for every 20 people.

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Hardly surprising, then,
that 80 percent
of all male newcomers to Dhaka

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start out as one of these
human taxis.

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They work ten hours a day,
seven days a week,

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pulling some seriously heavy loads.

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And so, as a new arrival, I think it
only right I should have a go.

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Now, I'm a keen cyclist in London,
so how hard can this really be?

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MAN SPEAKS BENGALI

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TRANSLATION: It isn't the traffic.
He's saying it's difficult to ride
in a...

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Straight line? Yeah. Yeah.

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What are the most important rules
of the street?

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TRANSLATOR SPEAKS BENGALI

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The brake is the most important
thing. The brake's the most
important thing, OK.

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Is it as easy as riding a bike?

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THEY CHATTER IN BENGALI

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I think that means it's not as easy
as riding a bike!

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Here I go.

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HE LAUGHS

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Hey!
HE GRUNTS

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CHILDREN CHEER

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Apparently, there are 600,000
of these in the city.

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And I'm beginning to get a sense

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of how much human horsepower

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it takes to move Dhaka around.

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I'm supposed to keep to the left,
but it's so crowded here

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I'm being forced
into the middle of the road.

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And with a cab on the back,
it's difficult to judge exactly how
tight a gap I can squeeze through.

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Oh, my God! Oh, I'm sorry.

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Oh, I'm sorry.

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What you soon realise is, you can
never get up a good head of steam.

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You're constantly
stopping and starting.

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And it's far harder and much more
exhausting than it looks.

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That was both great fun
and really, really hard work.

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More difficult than it seems.

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I had a great time doing it
for about 20 minutes,
but I think that's about my lot.

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These guys do it for, what,
ten hours at a time or more?

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It's astonishing.

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They're said to be
as fit as Olympic athletes

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and I have to say,
I can well believe it.

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Thank you. OK. Thanks, guys.

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But Dhaka's reliance on rickshaws

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means more than simply
back-breaking labour

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for tens of thousands
of its citizens.

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It also affects
the shape of the city.

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Because if your only means
of getting around is by rickshaw,

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then you are restricted to
travelling fairly short distances.

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Which means, in turn,

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that Dhaka is one of the most
densely-populated metropolises
in the world.

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If you look at the map of any
old city and see how it grows,

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you can see that it expands
in concentric rings
as the transport gets better.

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From horses to bicycles,

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to cars and trams
and trains and metro,

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the bigger the rings,
the more effective the transport.

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There's one very simple truth...

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The better the transport,
the bigger the city can grow.

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And today's megacities
have taken that simple truth

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and pushed it
to the absolute extreme.

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London. One of the planet's
first great metropolises.

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With a population of 13 million,
including all its surrounding areas,

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this city was built not on roads
but on steel.

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In the early 19th Century,

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London was 30 times smaller
than it is today.

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With only horsepower
to move its people around,
it simply couldn't get any bigger.

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And then a revolutionary new form
of transport started to reshape
this great metropolis

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and all of Britain's
other big cities.

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The oldest megacities, like London,
were only ever able to gobble up
the land around them

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thanks to whizzy new technologies
like the train.

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As the tendrils of train and tram
networks spread out from the centre,

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the suburbs followed
and the population mushroomed.

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And just when it looked as if
the train companies
couldn't demolish any more houses

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to build any more lines,

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they had another bright idea -
to go under the houses instead.

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From the opening of the first
underground station in 1863,

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in just 40 years, the population
trebled to six million.

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London's roots would become
criss-crossed by a web of tunnels,

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transporting more than
2.5 million people every day.

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It was revolutionary.

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And in the 150 years or so
since then,

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the London Underground
has hugely expanded

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and been rebuilt and patched up
and grown and copied.

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But everything has its limits.

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The number of people you
can squeeze through these tubes

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has now reached its maximum.

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It's a bit as if you were given
one pair of trousers for life

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at the age of 12.

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You get bigger and bigger

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and, first of all, the trousers
start to squeeze a little bit

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and then it's a really painful
squeeze.

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Well, this wonderful piece
of world-breaking technology

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has now become
London's painful squeeze.

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That is the problem
with these arteries of megacities.

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Very easily,
they become crammed and sclerotic

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and they're on the edge of collapse
again.

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The men who built
the London Underground
thought they had their city sorted.

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Nothing lasts forever.

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Success sucks in many more people

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until it starts to feel
like failure.

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That doesn't stop people
on the other side of the world
trying just the same thing,

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though bigger and faster
than London.

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This is the Shanghai Metro.

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20 years ago, Shanghai didn't have
an underground at all.

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Now it boasts the largest one
in the world,

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and they've built it
at an awesome speed.

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TRANSLATION: The total soil
excavated after completion
of the networks

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will be around 22 million tonnes,

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including all the soil that needs
to be dug out of the stations.

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22 million tonnes!

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00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:08,120
I'm very proud of what we've done.

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00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:12,120
In the last few years, we've managed
to complete the same length of lines

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that it's taken 100 years
for foreigners to build.

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00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:18,240
It's a great method of transport.

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00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:26,520
I'm sure London's engineers were
just as confident all that time ago.

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00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:29,800
But the Chinese Government
haven't stopped with a mere subway.

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00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:32,200
They've spent well over
a billion pounds

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00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:35,240
on a revolutionary new
overground train system

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00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:37,520
known as the Maglev.

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00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:40,960
These trains, built in Germany,
have no wheels.

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Using magnetic levitation,

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they literally float along the track
at extraordinary speeds.

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We're doing 380 kilometres an hour.

207
00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:56,280
385. 388. 390.

208
00:14:56,280 --> 00:14:58,920
400 kilometres an hour.

209
00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:02,520
425, six, seven.

210
00:15:02,520 --> 00:15:07,720
431. We're now doing more than
431 kilometres an hour.

211
00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:10,960
I think that's about
270 miles an hour.

212
00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:13,320
This thing is flying.

213
00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:18,520
It makes a British InterCity train
look like a horse and cart.

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00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:25,600
And just as the tubes
reshaped London,

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it's thought that
these super-fast services

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00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:32,720
will reshape this entire area
of China.

217
00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:39,000
It's too soon to say

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00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:43,880
how Maglev trains
might reshape China,

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00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:49,320
but experts are already talking
about giant urban areas

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of perhaps 100 million people each.

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00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:57,800
This is how futuristic transport

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00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:03,440
can entirely reshape
the way we think now about cities.

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00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:10,000
Then again, I'm not so sure.

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00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:12,960
People's dreams
of futuristic freedom

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00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:15,760
rarely pan out
the way that's expected,

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00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:17,800
and there's no clearer example
of that

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00:16:17,800 --> 00:16:22,400
than what's become
the true curse of the megacity
the world over -

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the humble car.

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00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:29,720
And the people of Shanghai
are in love with that.

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In China, just 25 years ago,
private cars were banned.

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Now they're joining the roads
of Shanghai alone

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00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:43,720
at the rate of 1,000 every day.

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00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:48,680
And China has become
the largest car market in the world.

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00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:59,240
Meet Shanghai citizens,
Wenbing Wu and his wife Jee Chen.

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00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:06,320
They've come to the BYD,
or Build Your Dream,
car showroom in Shanghai

236
00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:09,040
to take a look at a new motor.

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00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:14,880
This would be the first vehicle
that they, or any of their family,
have ever owned.

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00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:20,120
As far as I'm concerned,
they have no idea of what
they're letting themselves in for.

239
00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:26,480
TRANSLATION: We had to save
every month. We've been saving up
for a really long time.

240
00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:31,800
Wenbing and Jee are typical
of the megacity-dwelling Chinese.

241
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:36,240
The thing about cars,
is that they are just so appealing.

242
00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:39,520
Who would want to sit
on a sweaty subway

243
00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:44,400
or cram into a crowded bus
when you can cruise
in air-conditioned comfort?

244
00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:47,560
For many of us,
commuting by public transport

245
00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:50,240
is such a gruelling experience

246
00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:53,040
that getting a private car
is a tempting alternative.

247
00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:56,640
But this is about more
than just getting from A to B.

248
00:17:56,640 --> 00:17:59,400
It's about status.

249
00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:01,720
Now, in a place like Shanghai,

250
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:07,520
having a shiny new car of your own
shows that you have made it.

251
00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:10,640
For this couple,
it's clearly cost them a lot,

252
00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:15,160
but they seem convinced that their
new car's going to be worth it.

253
00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:20,880
Now we've managed to get a car,
all of my family
are really happy about it.

254
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:25,280
It's like you've realised
what you've been dreaming about
for so long.

255
00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:29,080
So all of us are really happy.

256
00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:36,760
If only we could take them by the
hand and lead them to the streets
of...

257
00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:39,160
Mexico City, say.

258
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:48,120
For this really is a city
built on tarmac.

259
00:18:48,120 --> 00:18:50,960
Here there are almost
20 million people

260
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:53,360
and nearly five million cars.

261
00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:58,880
Traffic here is so heavy

262
00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:05,080
that commuters can spend six hours a
day, a third of their waking lives,

263
00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:07,320
sitting in their cars

264
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:09,680
just trying to get to work.

265
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:12,880
This is transport
not just shaping the megacity,

266
00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:15,440
it's in danger of killing it.

267
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:26,400
The motorways, the freeways,
the railways below us

268
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:31,000
are the veins and the arteries
of any city.

269
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:35,400
We're in Mexico City, one of the
most congested places on the planet.

270
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:39,760
These arteries are getting
clogged up and congested.

271
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:44,200
And we know what happens
if you get too much of that.

272
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:46,400
You get an urban heart attack.

273
00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:53,560
Mexico City's traffic cops
are fighting a war,
and they are not winning.

274
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:03,000
I'm with the police helicopter pilot
Captain Oscar Cardenta

275
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:06,680
to get a whirlybird's-eye-view
of the morning commute.

276
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:13,680
Just 7:30am.
Already jams are forming down below,

277
00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:16,680
and they stretch as far
as we can see.

278
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:22,400
Right now,
we're going to be coming up on, uh,

279
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:26,200
on Periferico, which is usually
very busy at this time of day.

280
00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:29,920
Mexico City's Periferico
is the city's major ring road.

281
00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:34,840
If anything goes wrong here,
the police know it will spawn
rush-hour hell.

282
00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:39,320
How can you help from the air?
I have a traffic specialist

283
00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:42,400
and he's giving orders
to the people on the ground

284
00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:46,320
to detour the traffic,
control the flow.

285
00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:48,880
It isn't long before
Oscar spots trouble.

286
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:52,040
Something's slowing down
the traffic on a critical flyover.

287
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:55,800
Left unchecked, this could spell
gridlock, so he's straight onto it

288
00:20:55,800 --> 00:21:00,440
and a team of motorbike
traffic police are despatched.

289
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:04,400
They're going to need to act quickly

290
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:07,760
because any hold-ups can degenerate
into city-wide chaos.

291
00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:12,600
This time, it just turns out to be
a broken-down car.

292
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:16,560
The young couple driving it
have simply run out of petrol.

293
00:21:20,160 --> 00:21:22,560
No hanging around for the AA here.

294
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:26,000
So dire is the congestion,
that in Mexico City

295
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,040
the police have learned
to improvise.

296
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:38,120
Unconventional, but it works.

297
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:46,880
So if we're all going to live
in the megacity, and it rather
looks like most of us will,

298
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:53,360
are we all condemned to a future
of choking jams
and sweat-packed tube trains?

299
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:58,800
No, I think that maybe
we don't want to turn our backs
on our low-tech past.

300
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:04,000
Maybe Dhaka and its half a million
cycle rickshaws

301
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,800
does have something to teach us.

302
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:10,640
Across the globe

303
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:14,920
and London is gearing up
for a three-speed revolution.

304
00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:22,120
To get real change in the city,
you need two things.

305
00:22:22,120 --> 00:22:26,640
You need pent-up demand
on the streets
and you need proper leadership.

306
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:30,000
When the two come together,
change can happen very, very fast.

307
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,400
A good example would be
the London bicycle scheme.

308
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,040
When this got going...

309
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,800
..a lot of people said,
"It's not going to work,"

310
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:45,560
and within the first ten weeks
there were a million journeys made.

311
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:49,520
# I seen you riding around
The streets at night

312
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:52,440
# On your bicycle #

313
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:57,920
There's no single magic bullet
that's going to solve the megacity
transport crisis.

314
00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:01,400
We have to snaffle ideas
from all over the place,

315
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:03,560
taking smaller, smarter solutions

316
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:06,920
which, when you take them together,
can have an impact.

317
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:09,960
London's first large-scale
public bike-hire scheme

318
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:14,080
is part of that potential mix.

319
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,080
In the economy of the great cities,

320
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:25,800
they're always learning and copying
and stealing from each other.

321
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,200
And it's not just
from the hi-tech cities.

322
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,880
So Dhaka in Bangladesh
may be a nightmare,

323
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:35,200
but it's a nightmare
run on pedal power

324
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:38,800
and that's something that
modern cities are re-learning.

325
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:43,320
And so to have a transport system
that really works
you need everything.

326
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:48,200
You need the taxis and the cars
and the buses.

327
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:52,200
You need the trains
and you need bicycles

328
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:57,400
and, of course, decent places
to be able to walk safely, as well.

329
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:02,080
It's a bit like fusion food,
you know, that we eat all the time.

330
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:08,080
You bring in all sorts of lessons,
all sorts of flavours

331
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:09,800
and you mix them up

332
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,200
and with a bit of luck
and leadership,

333
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,040
you get a city that's moving again.

334
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:24,040
This is an example of how the
megacity can function at its best.

335
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,520
A bit of technological innovation,
some risk,

336
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:32,080
fingers crossed, and openness
to what's worked elsewhere.

337
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:34,120
And what goes for transport

338
00:24:34,120 --> 00:24:36,480
goes for what is transported,
as well.

339
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,880
And not just people.

340
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,080
Moving all of those commuters
around,

341
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:46,800
that's just one layer
of the amazing web of activity.

342
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,800
Because these people
need to be clothed and fed

343
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,480
and kept warm and watered,

344
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,200
and that means
that the megacity's routes

345
00:24:56,200 --> 00:25:01,000
stretch far beyond
the ordinary city boundaries,

346
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:04,680
to far-off generators
providing the electricity

347
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:09,600
or distant mountain reservoirs
providing the piped water.

348
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:14,120
But the greatest appetite is,
of course, for food.

349
00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:17,560
The megacities are monstrous hungry.

350
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,520
24 hours a day, seven days a week,

351
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,760
they suck in an astonishing array
of food.

352
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,480
Flown, shipped and driven in
from all round the world,

353
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:35,880
and we expect it served how,
when and where we want it.

354
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:51,080
London is no exception. It's one
very hungry and thirsty megacity.

355
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:55,400
Every year, London eats
seven million tonnes of food

356
00:25:55,400 --> 00:26:00,560
and downs 94 million litres
of bottled water alone.

357
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:06,480
London's total food footprint
is 125 times its size.

358
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:12,000
In other words, it requires
the equivalent of the entire
productive land of mainland Britain

359
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,040
to feed London.

360
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,200
Such is the megacity's demand
for fresh food,

361
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,800
we're forced to grow it
on an increasingly industrial scale.

362
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:35,120
Even the humble lettuce
gets the treatment.

363
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:41,360
This farm produces over
60 million lettuces every year.

364
00:26:41,360 --> 00:26:47,840
And to do that, it takes a
well-drilled small army of pickers.

365
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,280
Plants get lifted, and then
creeping just behind is a machine

366
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:56,240
with yet more workers
bagging and packing.

367
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:02,200
Within another 24 to 48 hours,
they'll have been
whisked down a motorway,

368
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,800
unloaded, sorted, packed,
loaded up again,

369
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,920
and now they're in your fridge
perhaps.

370
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:14,480
Or they might end up here,
in one of the strangest supermarkets
I've ever been to.

371
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,080
It is supersized.

372
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:27,000
It looks like an ordinary
supermarket, but it plainly isn't.

373
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,680
The aisles are too big, the trolleys
in those aisles are too big

374
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:34,600
and the people doing the picking
are all dressed in uniforms.

375
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,800
Because the food that
they're choosing, they're not
going to take home and eat.

376
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:42,400
They're not going to wash with
the shampoo that they're selecting

377
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,200
or drink the drinks
they're taking off the shelves.

378
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,200
They are buying for online shoppers

379
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:53,720
and they're being told what to pick
and how to pick it by a computer.

380
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:02,160
So right now,
to help feed the megacity,
welcome to the mega supermarket.

381
00:28:03,120 --> 00:28:06,800
The shelves of this unique
London Tesco online store

382
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,800
groan with 22,500 items,

383
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,440
spread over the equivalent
of three football pitches.

384
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,600
There are no bright and shiny signs
enticing you to buy here,

385
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:24,840
just series of numbers and codes
guiding the pickers.

386
00:28:26,360 --> 00:28:29,960
When we pick,
we have to pick by location.

387
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,000
OK. So pick by location first...

388
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,400
It's the numbers of the aisles
you're looking for? Yes.

389
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:40,600
So you're looking for 61. Yeah.
D2. Right.

390
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,200
Almond milk. Almond?

391
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,840
That's the one. That's the one.
That's the one.

392
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:55,000
Sharon and her fellow workers
end up picking a total
of 1,800 orders every day.

393
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,760
That's like shopping
600,000 times for groceries a year.

394
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,480
Quite a lot,
it's a battle with the clock

395
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:05,120
to juggle up to six separate
customer orders at one go.

396
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:08,120
They've all booked
their delivery slots.

397
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:13,000
And how quick do you have to be
normally, when you're not surrounded
by people like me?

398
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:17,000
Erm, we've got a time bar
at the bottom

399
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,800
that tells us
how quickly we're going.

400
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:26,400
At the moment, it's red and...
You're not going fast enough? No.

401
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,240
I'm well out of time.

402
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:32,200
So they're possibly waiting for me,
but...

403
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,760
So there's a specific van
waiting for you? Yeah.

404
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:42,120
Being ordered around by a computer
might make this a seemingly
alienating job,

405
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:46,080
but I'm reassured there is
a personal touch, however small.

406
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,760
So, what happens if
you get to your number

407
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:53,160
and what they want isn't there?

408
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,400
We have to put a substitution in.

409
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:59,920
I mean, like, I've substituted
this morning, erm, red wine.

410
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:05,800
They wanted Cabernet Sauvignon.
Yeah. I substituted it with Shiraz.

411
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,120
Right. Shiraz is better anyway!

412
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,000
The megacity says,
"Make it bigger, do it faster."

413
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,400
These people are presumably
shopping online

414
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,600
because their own lives
are so stressed and under the cosh,

415
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,000
they haven't got time to shop
for themselves.

416
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,400
The result is that they produce
a whole other group of people

417
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:30,600
who are also rushing around,
shopping against the clock.

418
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,200
But it's a curious business.
What you choose to put in your mouth

419
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:37,000
or put down your throat
or clean yourself with,

420
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,200
these are intimate decisions

421
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:43,400
and we rely
if not on the kindness of strangers

422
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,000
then the choice of strangers.

423
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,840
The honesty of strangers.
The hard work of strangers.

424
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,800
Of course, all this consumption
inevitably has a consequence.

425
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:04,680
Our modern megacities spew out
huge quantities of waste.

426
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,800
Every year, London throws away
20 million tonnes of the stuff.

427
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,560
Trying to cope
with just some of the deluge

428
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:13,960
is causing a massive strain
for megacities.

429
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,800
An astonishing 40,000 miles
of sewers

430
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,560
lurk beneath Greater London.

431
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,840
Uncoiled and laid end-to-end,

432
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,040
they'd stretch twice
around the world.

433
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:31,600
But the original sewer system,
a Victorian labyrinth of 450 miles
of interconnecting tunnels,

434
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:33,480
still serves the city above.

435
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:38,200
And just like that other Victorian
innovation, the London Underground,

436
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,120
the sewers are struggling to cope.

437
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:45,440
The arteries of the megacity
are clogging up.

438
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:51,840
I came into television to start with
because I was looking for glamour.

439
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:55,760
HE LAUGHS
Now you've got it!

440
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,000
'Rob Smith's one of 39 flushers

441
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,600
'who maintain Central London's
sewer network, and they do it
the old-fashioned way - by hand.'

442
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:08,280
Are you ready to go then?
Ready to go. Come this way.

443
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,000
Here we go.

444
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,640
Here it is.

445
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:23,240
It smells exactly as you expect.
I don't have to describe it.

446
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:29,080
The Victorian sewer system
was built when London
was a mere toddler of a megacity,

447
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,840
home to only 2.5 million people.

448
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:37,000
150 years later,
it has to deal with the end product
of at least ten million.

449
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,200
The biggest headache for Rob
and the small army of flushers

450
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,400
is not just what
all those millions eat,

451
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:45,680
but what it's cooked in, too.

452
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:49,760
Wow.

453
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:51,800
HE CHUCKLES

454
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:55,200
Yeah. So, that's fat? That's fat.

455
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:57,640
Where does it come from?

456
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,400
About a couple of miles up
in that direction.

457
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:03,840
We've got Leicester Square,
Trafalgar Square.

458
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:09,200
So, is this fat from restaurants
and kebab shops and so on?

459
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:12,600
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, that's where it comes from.

460
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,800
So when we talk about, you know, you
eat too much fat, too many burgers
and chips,

461
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,600
your arteries get furred up...
Same with the sewers.

462
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:24,720
This is London's arteries getting
furred up with fat. That's right.

463
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:29,240
It's astonishing
and very, very disgusting, as well!

464
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,800
I suppose we'd better go
and take a closer look.

465
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:35,880
I think we ought to
now we're down here.

466
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,440
WATER GUSHES

467
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:41,720
That is truly foul.

468
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:45,000
Really hard. That's old fat, that.

469
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:48,880
Oh, right. We'll go back up the top.
Back up again? Yeah.

470
00:33:54,960 --> 00:34:00,720
There we go. That's the product
of our fast-food burger-eating,

471
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:03,800
chip-eating, kebab-eating lifestyle.

472
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:06,040
Solid fat.

473
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,360
Choking up the sewers
underneath London.

474
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,600
Now I want to wipe my nose
but, on the whole,

475
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:15,560
I think I won't.

476
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:22,000
Across the globe, the consequences
of the waste crisis in Mexico City

477
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:26,800
are on an epic and al fresco scale
compared to London's sewers.

478
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,960
This is what's known
as the Grand Canal.

479
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:34,440
No gondolas, no palazzos
and no tourists either.

480
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:38,080
It's a hundred-mile-long open sewer,

481
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:44,040
designed to transport waste water
to the central sewage works.

482
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:48,000
I fear it is time for me
to experience sewer cleaning

483
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:51,680
on an altogether different level.

484
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,400
I'm told that at this moment,

485
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:03,760
clever people
are working on a form of television
that you can actually smell.

486
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:09,240
And all I can say is, be very glad
they haven't got there yet!

487
00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:12,960
The reek here is unbelievable.

488
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,600
These canals were designed
100 years ago

489
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,680
to handle the run-off
from Mexico City's rainy season.

490
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:24,960
But their history
has been overtaken.

491
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:27,760
The modern mania
for casually throwing things away

492
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:31,040
reaches its inevitable consequence
here.

493
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:36,200
Clogged and festering, almost
everything gets tossed in here.

494
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:47,800
And the truth is, we are becalmed
on a sea of plastic,

495
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:52,000
dead dogs - there's one just there -
and much worse.

496
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:56,000
I am, quite literally,
up a certain creek

497
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,400
with a paddle,
which is doing me no good.

498
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:04,200
I won't give you the statistics
about how much excrement the average
human produces each year,

499
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,200
you don't want to know,
except that it's lots,

500
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,000
or as the scientists would say,
lots and lots.

501
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,400
And so a city the size of this one,
with nearly 20 million people,

502
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:20,600
produces the equivalent
of an Olympic swimming pool-full
of excrement every minute,

503
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:23,360
and something has to happen to it.

504
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:30,560
But blockages can't be got rid of
from the relative safety of a boat,
or with a spade,

505
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:32,400
as in London's ancient sewers.

506
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:38,160
This calls for someone
with a diver's license, a cool head
and a very strong stomach.

507
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:44,320
When it comes to unclogging,
Ricardo Vazquez is the go-to guy.

508
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,440
Is it dangerous,
what you're doing now?

509
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,280
HE SPEAKS SPANISH

510
00:36:50,240 --> 00:36:57,440
TRANSLATION: It's dangerous because
of all the pollution in the water.
Also because of the glass and nails.

511
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,680
Is there anything
you wish you hadn't found?

512
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,160
Dead bodies.

513
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,640
Two or three every year.

514
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:09,000
I hope you have a good day today.
I hope it's not too bad.

515
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,560
I should say that Health and Safety

516
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,240
have insisted
that I can't go down there.

517
00:37:15,240 --> 00:37:20,320
And I think, for the first time
in my life, I'm thinking,
"Go Health and Safety!"

518
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:27,200
Once he's submerged,
the only contact Ricardo
will have with the outside world

519
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:29,120
is via a radio in his suit.

520
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:34,520
His suit is the only thing between
him and the highly toxic broth.

521
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:43,000
That's one of the most bizarre
things I've ever seen. I mean...

522
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:47,680
It's unimaginable,
what he's just lowered himself into.

523
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,120
With glass, nails, sewage

524
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:55,520
and maybe even the odd
decomposing animal to contend with,
it's a risky operation.

525
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,480
Ricardo now has to dive
to the bottom of the tank

526
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:01,800
and clear out the filters.

527
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,600
Down there, I'm told
it's completely pitch black.

528
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,680
So you can't see anything at all.

529
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:11,800
What you know is that horrible
things are blocking up the system.

530
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,200
And if they're allowed
to keep blocking it up,

531
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:19,120
the entire sewage system
starts to malfunction.

532
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:29,840
There's a metre of just solid trash
at this bottom of this, as well,
so there's no ground, if you like.

533
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:37,360
After five minutes,
a radio message comes from the deep.

534
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:38,840
He's found a tree.

535
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,840
While still submerged,
working by touch alone,

536
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,200
Ricardo sets about
dislodging the offending tree.

537
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:51,280
I can't think of somebody
who is more useful
to the people of Mexico City

538
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,120
than the man who's just gone
down there.

539
00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,600
Blockage dealt with,

540
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,760
Ricardo's winched out for a shower
and a strong dose of disinfectant.

541
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,600
The size of the megacity
food-and-waste footprint

542
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:13,360
threatens the future of the planet.

543
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:19,680
But the metropolis has always been
a great engine for innovation
and radical change.

544
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:24,000
And the solutions aren't all
top-down or about civil engineering.

545
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,320
They can start off deceptively small
and simple.

546
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,640
Cooking oil.

547
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:33,480
In every city in the world,

548
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:38,200
this stuff is as common
as cigarette butts and beer cans.
It's everywhere.

549
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:42,880
Megacities produce millions
of gallons of it all the time

550
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,000
and it's normally seen as a problem.

551
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:50,480
You've seen what happens
when you stick it down drains
and that is not pretty.

552
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,920
But imagine if it was, in fact,
liquid gold.

553
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,800
An answer to transport problems.

554
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:01,200
It's a pretty weird idea,

555
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:05,200
but often, salvation...

556
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:07,200
is in the detail.

557
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,680
This restaurant has signed up
to a pioneering scheme

558
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:16,120
that takes all their waste oil,
which would simply get poured away,
adding to London's sewer blockages,

559
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:19,120
and transforms it
into something useful.

560
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,120
And it's all thanks to this man.

561
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:26,720
Every day, Nigel Jewison and his
team do their restaurant round,

562
00:40:26,720 --> 00:40:30,360
picking up drums of dirty, used oil.

563
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,920
But the HQ for Operation Cooking Oil
is here,

564
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,000
down in the heart of old London.

565
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:40,280
Crammed in among
the grimy railway arches,

566
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:45,440
this mini refinery is a magnet
for London's cabbies.

567
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:50,480
Hundreds of them queue here
every week to get their fill.

568
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:54,360
You can see the lovely quality
of that oil. That's, er...

569
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,720
And this is how we like it.
Classy restaurant, classy oil.

570
00:40:57,720 --> 00:41:03,320
That's not always the case, though.
There's a few restaurants I won't
eat at, even with their good names,

571
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:05,200
after seeing their waste oil.

572
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,800
So this is a very straightforward
filtration system.

573
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,120
Dirty oil becomes less dirty oil,

574
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:17,000
sits in these tanks
and becomes clean-ish oil,

575
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:19,120
and then, eventually, clean oil.

576
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:22,600
At which point, it can be made
into fuel for the taxis.

577
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:29,400
Hiya, Pete. How's it going?
Busy on the streets?
It's OK. It could be better!

578
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:32,800
It always can. Always better.
Hello there. Hiya.

579
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:35,640
Have you been doing it for a while,
using the biodiesel?

580
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:39,200
Is it good for you,
as a taxi driver? Fantastic. Why?

581
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:42,480
It's cheaper, for a start.
It's cleaner. Yeah.

582
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:48,000
With the new legislation coming on
the older cabs, it could be a way
to get us to last a bit longer.

583
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,680
Do you notice the lack of
black smoke and smells?

584
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:55,520
Definitely. But because it smells
of fish and chips,
you're always hungry!

585
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:02,480
If you go to classier restaurants,
it would smell of garlic and
all sorts of stuff. Garlicky cabs.

586
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:07,160
One of my dreams when I first
started up, when people started
talking about smells,

587
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:12,200
was that, if I could collect
all the Chinese restaurants, on
another round, Indian restaurants,

588
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:16,800
we could open up a filling station
with Chinese-smelling fuel,
Indian-smelling fuel.

589
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,360
So you could choose your
nationality of fuel!

590
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:22,400
It'd be brilliant, wouldn't it?

591
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:28,240
But it's good news for you guys.
I think it's very good. It's a shame
they can't put it in buses. Yes.

592
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:37,800
Coming to the amount of cooking oil
in the city centre, around London,

593
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:42,600
how widespread could this be
in fuelling taxis, fuelling cars?

594
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:47,600
If we can collect all the oil
in London, we could probably fuel
all the taxis,

595
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:50,440
which would be a fantastic thing.
Amazing. It would be.

596
00:42:54,400 --> 00:43:00,320
If a great city like London had to
rely on the elected politicians
and the planners for its solutions,

597
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:05,800
I think it would be
a much less interesting
and more constipated sort of place.

598
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:09,320
Very often, the big ideas are found

599
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:13,400
in the little nooks
and side streets of the city.

600
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:17,200
And the job of the politicians
is to get hold of those ideas

601
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:19,800
and, using their taxes
and their rules,

602
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:25,160
to ensure that they then spread
and seed much more widely.

603
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,720
Putting old cooking oil to good use
is one thing,

604
00:43:31,720 --> 00:43:35,400
but what about all the other stuff
we chuck away without a thought?

605
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:39,200
Well, that ends up here,
in a landfill site.

606
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:43,600
London is near to the bottom of
the European cities landfill league,

607
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:47,720
only recycling about 25 percent
of its waste.

608
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:54,200
And it's running out of space
to dump its growing, growling

609
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,880
mountains of rubbish.

610
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:01,880
The truth is that we in the West
throw away far too much.

611
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:05,160
I do. You probably do, as well.

612
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:08,400
And when we think about it,
we may feel a bit guilty.

613
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:13,400
And increasingly,
we're being kind of mildly bullied

614
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:17,520
by councils and government
to throw away less.

615
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:21,040
But when you come
to a place like this,

616
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,240
you realise why.

617
00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:27,400
Perhaps we do have to learn
from those parts of the world

618
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:32,000
where they recycle everything
they possibly can.

619
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:44,040
In Dhaka, it isn't a case
of recycling with a conscience.

620
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:48,680
This is the extreme end
and it's driven by necessity.

621
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:54,360
Here, entire communities
are completely reliant
on salvaging the scraps,

622
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:56,200
the megacity's leftovers,

623
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,880
to carve out some kind of living.

624
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:06,200
It's sort of like when a large
animal is killed in the jungle

625
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,120
and the carcass
is picked completely.

626
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:12,200
And this is an urban version
of the same thing.

627
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:16,000
Rather than microbes
doing the picking, it's little boys.

628
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:23,360
Dhaka's main rubbish dump
is the size of a small town,

629
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,280
and a town with its own people.

630
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:30,000
Here, anything that can be
melted down or reshaped and reused

631
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,280
is bagged up
and carted off to be resold.

632
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,280
And when I say anything,
I really do mean anything.

633
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,080
What are you looking for?

634
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,120
TRANSLATOR SPEAKS BENGALI

635
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:46,640
Plates, cartons, bottles. Plastic...
Plastic. I can understand that.

636
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,600
And what does she do with them
when she's got them?

637
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:51,840
SHE SPEAKS BENGALI

638
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,200
TRANSLATION:
Takes it to the shops and sell it.

639
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,000
Everything there
is scrunched and dirty.

640
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,000
These are not bottles
that could ordinarily be recycled.

641
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:04,200
This is absolutely
the leavings of the leavings,
the scraps of the scraps,

642
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:05,800
the final pickings

643
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,480
after everybody else
further up the food chain

644
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,200
has taken what's worth something.

645
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,920
Here, even the insidious plastic
shopping bag is given another life,

646
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:19,360
melted down and recycled.

647
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,520
In a sort of most unpleasant way,
I suppose,

648
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:25,560
poverty is very efficient.

649
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,360
Everything is used.

650
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:33,840
This might seem like
a rather hardcore solution

651
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,480
to the waste problem
of the metropolis,

652
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:41,600
but perhaps the Dhaka necessity
for re-use and recycling

653
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:44,400
has lessons for us at home.

654
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:49,200
The longer all of us live in the
city, the more disconnected we get.

655
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:52,480
More of our food is processed
and pre-packaged.

656
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:56,160
It arrives in cartons
and little plastic boxes.

657
00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:01,000
And instead of being sure
about when something has gone off

658
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:04,080
and it's no longer acceptable,

659
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:07,000
we rely on those rather timid
sell-by dates.

660
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,680
"If in doubt, chuck it out."

661
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:14,240
Which is a wasteful way of living
and of eating.

662
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:22,320
Dinner with Simon and Fran,

663
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,080
another pair
of metropolis innovators.

664
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:27,960
They call themselves freegans.

665
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,200
There's bread here.
That's £1.30 for that.

666
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:37,400
£1.30 that'd cost in the shop.
It's good bakery bread.
Nothing wrong with that at all.

667
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:38,800
Large whites.

668
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:42,760
Can you find a date on there?
The 16th. That's yesterday.

669
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:44,840
Bread doesn't just go off overnight.

670
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:47,440
What are these? Diet Pepsi.

671
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:51,000
I'll just pass them to you.
There's a lot of it.

672
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:55,000
You'll be belching for a week! Yeah!

673
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:59,400
It makes me feel gaseous
and horrible!

674
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:01,880
Just look at this!

675
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:07,320
Twice a week for the past two years,
Simon and Fran
have sifted through the skips

676
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:11,720
of the back of London's high-street
stores and they've yet to go hungry.

677
00:48:11,720 --> 00:48:15,600
Apart from the fact that
it's good news for you,
does it make you angry?

678
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:17,800
It does. Because of the waste.

679
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:23,200
Because there's people in the world
who are starving, and we have an
abundance and we throw it away.

680
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,000
What's that? Hold on a minute.

681
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,800
What have you got? Ha-ha!
Chocolates. Chocolate. OK.

682
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:32,760
Not bad.

683
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,800
Why would that be thrown away?
I have no idea. What's the...?

684
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:38,320
February.
Chocolates don't just go off.

685
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:45,800
'I don't generally make a habit
of routing through rubbish bins,
and it does feel a little odd.

686
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:49,800
'Legally speaking, however,
what's thrown away is fair game.'

687
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:53,480
And so to the getaway vehicle!
THEY LAUGH

688
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:58,440
What's the range of stuff
that you're picking up?

689
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,920
Meats. A lot of meat that we find.
Yeah. Cheese. Milk.

690
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:03,400
Yoghurts. Yoghurts.

691
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:08,000
What would you say to people who
say, "It's past its best-by date?"

692
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:10,600
Use your common sense
and have a look at it.

693
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:14,800
Best-by date, obviously it's saying,
"If you want it perfect,
eat it before then."

694
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:18,440
But, you know,
the food's still perfectly edible.

695
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:22,000
Have you ever been unable
to feed yourselves

696
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:25,200
by freegan...
lifting of stuff out of bins?

697
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,400
Not in London. No.

698
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:32,040
There's too much abundance and
waste to not be able to do it. Yeah.

699
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:38,080
Simon and Fran's fight
against the waste footprint
is only half the battle.

700
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:43,320
Managing to work out
how to supply a metropolis
with all the resources it needs

701
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:47,320
requires an equally smart way
of thinking.

702
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:52,080
Food often travels
thousands of miles
before it arrives on our plates.

703
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,360
It's inefficient, it's wasteful.

704
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:59,480
But to find a solution, perhaps
we need to travel back in time.

705
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:11,800
Away, at last,
from the madness of the megacity.

706
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:17,600
Birdsong, nature...
Back in the countryside.

707
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,600
Except that
I'm not in the countryside.

708
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:24,280
I am inside Mexico City

709
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:29,200
and we're on our way to see
its famous floating farms.

710
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:33,680
They go right the way back as an
idea to the original Aztec city,

711
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:36,440
which was built on a lake.

712
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:40,880
And the way they fed themselves was,
the created little floating islands,

713
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:46,320
and on those islands, they grew
the plants they needed to eat.

714
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:53,320
In the 16th century, Mexico City,
or Tenochtitlan,

715
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:55,800
was the largest city in the world.

716
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,600
The Aztecs' floating islands,
or farms, were vast rafts

717
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:04,400
made out of reeds,
fertilised with mud from the lake,
and organic waste.

718
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:09,120
The result was highly productive.
An amazing two-thirds
of the city's food

719
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:12,160
was grown within the city limits.

720
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,200
DOG BARKS

721
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,200
Now we're in the 21st century,

722
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:22,280
one of the questions is,
could we go right the way back?

723
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:29,600
Could we learn to grow more of our
own food actually inside the city?

724
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:33,160
Pedro Castillo
is keeping traditions alive

725
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,040
from before the Spanish Conquest.

726
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:41,760
It's a beautiful. Claro.

727
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:45,400
His fertile little holding
of vegetables

728
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:49,200
is home to livestock and
an abundance of fruit and vegetables,

729
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:52,320
which are all sold back
to downtown Mexico City

730
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:54,560
a couple of miles away.

731
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:58,160
Why did they start to grow the food
on the island?

732
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,520
And is it a good way of growing
food, to have a floating farm?

733
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:03,600
HE SPEAKS SPANISH

734
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:08,000
TRANSLATION:
It was more about necessity.

735
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:14,280
It was the lack of space, the lack
of room to cultivate their crops
that brought them here.

736
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,520
And then they noticed
it was very good for farming.

737
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:22,840
So, you yourself,
what do you grow here
and where do you sell what you grow?

738
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,840
They grow lettuce, spinach, tomato,

739
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:31,760
corn, radish.

740
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:33,880
< HE SPEAKS SPANISH

741
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:37,680
Normally, they sell it in the market
here in Xochimilco,

742
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:43,320
but right now, they're selling to
very selective restaurants
in Mexico City. Very good.

743
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:49,400
Pedro makes a mean tamale, that's a
kind of corn dough served in leaves.

744
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:50,680
Mm. Very good.

745
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:56,120
And like all good farmers, Pedro does
a nice line in home brew, as well.

746
00:52:56,160 --> 00:53:00,200
This is a traditional tipple
which is made out of cactus sap.

747
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:06,280
It's got a kind of caramel taste.
And it would be extremely rude
not to sample it properly.

748
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:07,920
It is damn fine!

749
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:12,600
Mm! Very good.
HE SPEAKS SPANISH

750
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:19,960
TRANSLATION: You're offering it
to the mother earth.

751
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:29,560
Of course, this is very much
a Mexico City story.

752
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:34,520
You don't get tamales
and floating farms most places.

753
00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:36,560
But perhaps there's a lesson here.

754
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,800
Because although
they're built by humans,

755
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,040
cities depend on nature.

756
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:45,400
We're inside nature,
we're part of nature.

757
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:51,000
And the great cities that we build
thrive or die

758
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:54,680
because of the natural world
around them.

759
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:03,600
We tear up the past
and we ignore nature at our peril.

760
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:08,200
Just like Mexico City, London
used to grow a substantial amount
of its own food

761
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,040
within a few short miles
of the centre.

762
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:15,600
This fertile farmland,
known as the breadbasket of London,

763
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:19,840
is better known today
as Heathrow Airport,

764
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:23,000
where food, very often similar food,

765
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:28,080
now arrives from South America,
Africa, Asia.

766
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:32,400
I'm not saying we should rip up
and plough what we've built over,

767
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:36,920
but we do need to be more clever
about how we use what we've got.

768
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:43,000
If the future shape of metropolis
seems to be ever more dense
and increasingly high rise,

769
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:48,440
then, maybe, some of the answers
to feeding the city
have to be urban ones.

770
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:54,520
For decades, people have imagined
a science-fiction future.

771
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,800
A vertical city
and farms in the sky.

772
00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:00,200
It's not entirely far-fetched.

773
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:04,880
Architects are already hard at work.

774
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:14,200
Nearer to hand, inside
this inner-city London terrace,

775
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:18,200
the seeds of something pretty big
could be growing.

776
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:26,320
Like most ground-breaking ideas,
they start small.

777
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:33,560
This is a mini hydroponic
and aquaponic farm.

778
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:39,000
There is no soil here.
The plants are grown under light,
in mineral solutions and water,

779
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:42,240
fertilised by fish droppings.

780
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:48,720
Fresh eggs are laid daily
in a rooftop coop.

781
00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:54,600
I'm under no illusion
that a few salad plants and hens
are going to solve the food crisis,

782
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:58,400
but think how much neglected space
London has to offer

783
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:03,760
a whole city of potential
21st century urban farmers.

784
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:05,680
Farmers like Paul Smith.

785
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:09,600
Our big plan is to grow food
all around the city,

786
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:14,360
in warehouses, empty buildings
and old derelict spaces.

787
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,120
When you're growing
inside a building,

788
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:21,520
the best way to make use
of the space is to grow upwards,
create vertical installations,

789
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:23,600
layers of food within buildings.

790
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:27,360
This a movement
happening all around the world
that we hope to be part of.

791
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:30,560
We're trying to demonstrate
you can get the best of both worlds.

792
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:33,240
You can have an ecological
food system in the city,

793
00:56:33,240 --> 00:56:37,080
and if you do that,
we'll have a much lower
food footprint for everybody.

794
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:44,280
If we can get enough people
growing food in cities,
it'll be one part of the picture.

795
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:47,320
The city has an absolute,
in our view, critical role

796
00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:51,360
in fulfilling the future food needs
of a place like London.

797
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:01,200
Over the next century,
disasters permitting,

798
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:04,640
the growth of the megacities
will stretch onwards.

799
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:09,040
In the last hour, in the time that
it's taken to watch this programme,

800
00:57:09,040 --> 00:57:13,920
7,500 people have moved
from the country to a big city.

801
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:20,160
In that hour,
the world's slum population
has gone up by 3,000 people.

802
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,680
Shanghai's underground,
already the longest in the world,

803
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,360
will have grown
by a further five metres.

804
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:33,880
And so is the inexorable rise
and the dominance of the megacity

805
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:37,720
a cause for despair or hope?

806
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:42,280
There's no single answer
to any of this.

807
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:48,040
We need the planners. We need
the Shanghai-sized ambitions.

808
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:51,240
But we also need
the kick from the streets.

809
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,800
We need the stroppy cyclists,
the backyard innovators,

810
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:58,760
and the idealistic freegans
trying new ways of living.

811
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:06,400
Because cities don't belong
to the town hall or the architects
or the commissars.

812
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:09,600
Cities belong to citizens.

813
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:13,680
Are they going to be
new urban nightmares

814
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:18,680
or are they going to be places
where we dream new dreams
and bring them into effect?

815
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:23,040
Well, that's up to me. And you.

816
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,040
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

817
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:30,080
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk