A Time of Waste

I don’t think there’s any doubting we live in a society of disposability, and I can’t claim any superiority in this respect. I like to think that I’m better than average at use, reuse and recycling, but I’m well aware I could do better. But this kind of thing annoys me. Official, sanctioned, waste creation.

The whole tone is playing into the ‘culture of fear’ that seems to permeate everything these days. But come on. A Use By date of this Friday means it’s fine to eat on Friday and then absolutely, definitely, completely unsafe to eat on Saturday? That defies all logic (and, I suspect, biological precognition). Smell and look actually are a good way to determine if food is safe, and frankly I’ve eaten LOADS of stuff past it’s use by, sell by or best before dates. Russian Roulette perhaps.

Part of the problem as well is that as far as I’m aware (I may be wrong) the majority of items have ‘Best Before’ rather than ‘Use By’, but Joe Public will equate the two, which are most certainly not the same thing at all (chucking stuff out after passing the ‘Best Before’ date is even more daft).


We seem to be moving further away from common sense, more into prescribed right and wrong. Then again, maybe I’ll die one day after using milk in my tea that’s a day over date.