Morality and Waste

Have you noticed the discourse about waste, recently?

Yesterday, I read an article in the London Review of Books about morality. The author, Thomas Nagel, discussed 2 types: consequentialism (concerned with good/bad outcomes of our actions – utilitarianism is a popular version – and proponents take a rationalist perspective that we can always work out the moral benefits of our actions to make better decisions for the good of most); and deontologism (concerned with emotional intuitions as to right and wrong actions, taking as a fundamental starting point the invoilability of the individual which would proscribe murder and torture, and protects our property rights as individuals and values the keeping of promises and other contracts; and maintains a sense of humanity’s collectiveness).

Last week, I watched a programme on Channel 4 about cooking and waste (‘Cook Clever, Waste Less’) and I am a fan of the BBC’s ‘Eat well for Less’ most particularly because it provides some strategies for shopping – more than half the problem of food waste. I waste a lot of food and it bothers me. At the moment, my appetite is much reduced and my portion sizes have shrunk, but I still put too much on my plate and end up by scrapping half into the bin. I hunt around for the perfect condiment to perk up my taste buds, struggling to recover from medications – so I have lots of little bottles that I have tried once and now don’t know what to do with them.

The programmes present waste as a moral issue. They follow the obvious consequentialist argument, that waste costs us money, and creeping into this argument is the costs to the planet of wasted food which produces methane and pollutes through the use of plastic packaging.

The deontologist argument to waste might be summed up by the parental strictures to ‘think of the starving in Africa’ when I was a child and had rejected the food in front of me. Given that I had little control over what was provided for me, such admonishments always seemed a bit unfair. But famines have not gone away and research points to the over-consumption in rich countries as a contributing factor.

Other programmes, such as the Great British Sewing Bee, have also championed the notion of wasting less by re-purposing old clothes and garments discarded by us and sent to the charity shops. I quite like making things but find recipe books often encourage the buying of ingredients that I only use once – celery being a classic example – or equipment and materials to make craft objects, attractively photographed in paperback project books. I find I do not have the time or energy to make all this stuff although the dream is ever present.

I have started to restrict my recipes to templates, and I have created some inexecrable dishes, but my mantra has become ‘use it up’. I have taken up mending and rather startlingly my mother mentioned that she was going to mend some clothes – I can’t remember the last time I have seen her do that – she loves the Sewing Bee as I do. I have a strict rule that I cannot go on courses until I have established a practice in my chosen area. So no more painting courses until I start painting every day. This has saved me money – partially fulfilling utilitarian morality concerning waste but probably not doing much for the starving children in Africa.