The Value Of Nothing

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.