MTV's Reality Show: Real Dirty?

Turns out the "remote" island where MTV filmed its latest reality show, Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island, isn't so remote after all.

The program was shot on Isla Colon in Panama, home to a bustling boating community and a small airport.

In return, according to a local newspaper and blogger, the MTV production crew left behind large amounts of trash -- and not the drunken, backbiting variety of most reality TV.

"I have seen the aftermath of a tornado and this was almost as bad," Joe Maher wrote on a tree-climbing enthusiasts' website.

Maher, who runs a program in Panama for the Institute for Tropical Ecology and Conservation has a station in Bocas del Drago. That's near Starfish Beach, near where most of the filming took place.

The area was tight with security that kept curious onlookers out during production. But once MTV left, Maher and a student surveyed the area. "The place looked like a trash dump," Maher said, with evidence of felled trees, wooden structures, and pages of scripts (revealing that the reality show is actually, well, scripted).

Allene Blaker, editor of the local newspaper Bocas Breeze, wrote a direct letter to MTV in her newspaper's August issue.

"By not revealing your whereabouts last month (those were my own photos of the [MTV] bungalows on the beach), I was respecting your privacy," she wrote. "You should have the decency to respect our property."

Blaker also pleaded for MTV to send someone to "pick up all these discarded, empty plastic water bottles, please."

A spokeswoman from Bunim/Murray -- the production company of the Real World and Road Rules shows for MTV -- said that no trees were cut down for the filming of The Island, and that the pictures were taken before crews had a chance to clean up the area.

Maybe MTV can do a little carbon offsetting through their very own International Global Climate Change Campaign, Switch, to offset trashing a beach.

The site calls for ideas to help save the planet. Anyone?

by Andrea Chalupa