Britons will be urged to stockpile tinned food, batteries and bottled water under a new campaign launched by the UK government to encourage the public to prepare for emergencies.
Oliver Dowden, deputy prime minister, will on Wednesday unveil a new website designed to help households mitigate potential harm from an array of risks, ranging from flooding and power outages to biosecurity crises such as another pandemic.
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The “Prepare” website launched on Wednesday calls on households to stock up on bottled water. It suggests a minimum supply of about three litres of drinking water per person per day, but recommends 10 litres per person per day — to aid basic cooking and hygiene needs — as a more comfortable level of supplies.It also urges people to buy and store non-perishable food that “doesn’t need cooking, such as ready-to-eat tinned meat, fruit or vegetables”, as well as a tin opener, plus baby supplies and pet food where relevant.
Battery or wind-up torches and radios, a first aid kit, and wet wipes are among other emergency supplies detailed on the government checklist.
Speaking at the London Defence Conference, Dowden will say “resilience begins at home” and cite polling by the conference showing that only 15 per cent of people have an emergency supply kit in their homes, while more than 40 per cent of people do not have three days’ supplies of non-perishable food and water.
Government officials said the advice would bring Britain in line with nations such as Finland and Japan, which are regarded as leaders in citizen resilience.
How are they suppose to pay for it? Food bank usage is only going up, how is having three days of emergency food on stand by a realistic prospect for some households?
Generally you don’t buy this all in one go. The idea is to buy one or two extra things per week and build the stockpile slowly.
Millions of people are already having to skip meals because they don’t make enough to feed themselves everyday, where is this money for one or two extra items suppose to come from?
And also to rotate through it.
Use the emergency food in regular cooking, and replace it. This avoids things going off.
Perhaps you’re just supposed to wait until this apparently impending disaster, and then raid your local food bank. Perhaps we should consider them off-site storage.