Most of us take it for granted that we can pop along to a
supermarket and buy pretty much whatever food takes our fancy, and increasingly
we can do this at almost any time of day or night. I'll caveat that by saying
that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK living
in food poverty, that 1.8 million emergency food parcels were handed out in
2016/17, and there are over 2,000 food banks across the UK, which is nothing short of scandalous.
For those people who live in food poverty the bad news is
that this year food prices have hit their highest rate of inflation in five
years, 2.5% in March 2019 according to the BRC-Nielsen Shop Price Index. UK
crops such as onions, potatoes, and cabbage showed the greatest increases,
while increases in global cereal prices have led to increases in the cost of
bread and cereals. Despite this, UK farmers increasingly find it hard to make
ends meet, with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
predicting that incomes are expected to fall across almost farm types in
England in 2018-19 with pig farms likely to be the hardest hit.
Some sources predict that food prices will rise as a result of Brexit,
although not everyone agrees. On his LBC Radio show, Nigel Farage told one
caller who said as much that equally, prices could fall, due, he said "to
terminology." Quite what he meant by that I have no idea; I'd be grateful
if anyone could enlighten me. But whatever happens to food prices, one sector or
another of the population will suffer. Increasing prices put even more pressure
on those who rely on food banks, while falling prices squeeze farmers profits
and will inevitably drive some out of business.
Wandering around my local supermarket, one could be forgiven
for gaining the impression that we truly live in a land of milk and honey
judging by the trollies laden with food of all types and from all nations.
Sadly, a whole lot of the food that gets wheeled out of supermarkets gets
binned, and a lot of that is food that isn't even partly used. Around 18
million tonnes of food, with a value of around £23 million ends up in landfill
every year in the UK. In part, the relative cheapness of food (even in spite of
the food inflation we are experiencing) is to blame. Simply put, too many
people do not value the food they buy. In our house it causes almost physical
pain for us to throw out uneaten food, although there are times when it is
unavoidable. I have found that doing smaller, regular shops cuts down the
amount of food that gets thrown out, although for many people the weekly bulk shop
remains the default option, either through choice or necessity.
Food is not the only thing that we buy that we treat in a
somewhat cavalier manner. Around 300,000 tonnes of clothing, worth £12.5
billion ended up in UK landfill sites in 2017, with one in ten people surveyed
saying that the cheapness of clothing meant that they regularly threw clothes
away after a few wears, with clothing considered 'old' after twenty washes or
fifty days. Looking at the prices of retailers like Primark, it is easy to see
why people would think that. According to a survey conducted for the charity
Barnardo's, Britons will this year spend £2.7 billion on over 50 million summer
outfits that will get worn just once. This will include £700 million spent on
11 million items bought for holiday trips that will then never be worn again.
Few people consider the environmental impacts of buying and
discarding cheap items of clothing. A t-shirt from Primark can cost as little
as £2, so it is little wonder that they will be bought, worn a couple of times
and then discarded. I admit that is an attitude that I have adopted in the
past. Back in 2007, we went on holiday to Tobago, and I bought some cheap polo shirts.
They cost £2.50 each and my thoughts were that I wouldn't be heartbroken if I
never wore them again, say if they were ruined in the sea or discoloured by
sun-tan lotion. As it happens, brought home and washed, there was nothing wrong
with them and I still have them, and still wear them. Which is probably just as
well when one considers what goes into the production of the average
t-shirt. The production of one cotton
t-shirt requires 2,700 litres of water in growing sufficient cotton (about the
amount one person drinks in nearly three years). A pair of jeans requires about
7,600 litres. By throwing out perfectly wearable clothes, we are not only
bunging the country up with landfill, we are wasting precious resources such as
the water that is required to produce them in the first place. The low cost of
clothing might give us incredible choice at affordable prices, but it does
nothing to instil in us a sense of value of what we are buying.
I recently read Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, from which I learned that I,
like millions of other people, own too much 'stuff' and that includes clothes,
so what I am about to say somewhat contradicts what I have just said about
throwing stuff away, especially clothes.
Looking at the amount of clothing in my wardrobe, I know that there is plenty
of stuff that I am unlikely to wear again. Like most people, I sometimes buy
clothes to which I am attracted, but find that I have little occasion to wear,
either because they do not really suit me, or there is little opportunity or
justification. There is a school of thought that clothes one hasn't worn for a
long time - usually a couple of years - are ripe to be disposed of. Kondo (pictured below) doesn't subscribe to that, preferring the idea that we should dispose of
things that no longer give us joy. The problem with that is that it conflicts
with the justification that most people have for keeping things, either the
sentimental value attached to possessions, even if they will never be used
again, or fear that as soon as they are thrown out, a need for them will be
found.
There is a balance to be struck, whether it is in food or
clothes that we buy. We should buy what we need, and value what we buy. Oscar
Wilde said that a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the
value of nothing; whether it is cynicism or not, as a society we are
increasingly losing sight of the value of things.
