Have you ever heard of the term hygiene poverty? Well something as basic as hygiene, as owning a toothbrush or as taking a shower before work is a very real issue for millions of Brits. Let’s talk to CEO of the hygiene bank, Ruth Brock, to see how it affects so many people on a daily basis, and what is being done to help.
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00:00 If we all come together and show that we can start to solve hygiene poverty, then maybe
00:07 our policy makers will start to take notice and realise this is a problem that they can
00:11 start to solve as well.
00:12 At the charity, The Hygiene Bank, they share a belief that basic hygiene is a right, not
00:17 a privilege.
00:18 In bringing together communities, businesses and thought leaders to tackle hygiene poverty
00:22 by giving access to products and being a voice for change.
00:26 Hygiene poverty involves not being able to afford many of the basic everyday hygiene
00:31 essentials, which most of us now take for granted.
00:34 New research released for National Hygiene Week reveals 51% of UK adults feel low self-esteem
00:40 on days when they don't feel clean, with four in five saying it has a negative impact on
00:45 their confidence.
00:46 So hygiene poverty is an invisible poverty facing the UK at the moment.
00:51 It's widespread, it's increasing and it's disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable
00:56 in our society.
00:58 And essentially, it's that people just simply can't afford the basic products that many
01:02 of us are lucky enough to take for granted.
01:05 So it means people having to share a toothbrush.
01:08 It means people using washing up liquid to wash their hair and their bodies as well as
01:12 their dishes.
01:13 It means parents not having enough nappies to change their baby as often as they need
01:17 to.
01:18 It means people choosing between period protection and other products that their family might
01:23 need.
01:24 This new data suggests that as many as 21% of UK adults, the equivalent of 11.5 million
01:30 people, are finding it increasingly difficult to afford basic hygiene products.
01:35 With the cost of living crisis continuing to burden families, the reality of low-income
01:39 households is that people are restricted in choosing between being able to heat their
01:43 homes, pay for rent, eat or be clean.
01:46 The reality is that if you, as so many people are now, are struggling to pay your energy
01:51 bills, if you're struggling to pay your food bills, you have almost certainly been having
01:55 to skimp or go without basic toiletries and cleaning products for some time before that.
02:01 But it is a very particular issue because the shame, the stigma, the embarrassment that
02:06 people tell us they feel when they're living with hygiene poverty means that people don't
02:10 speak out and they don't ask for help.
02:13 And that means that awareness of the issue, as you say, is really, really low.
02:16 Our charity is run by nearly 600 incredible people who give their time day in, day out,
02:22 week in, week out to collect products that are generously donated to us by the public
02:27 and by brands and to distribute them to food, food banks and schools and refuges and homeless
02:33 shelters and get those products to families who really, really need them.
02:37 And we have over a thousand drop-off points right away across the country, big yellow
02:41 boxes, 900 of them are in booth stores.
02:44 So it's really easy for you when you're doing your shopping to just grab an extra toothbrush
02:49 or a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of shampoo, just a basic bar of soap and put it in one
02:55 of our yellow bins.
02:56 And again, our volunteers will make sure that gets to a family who really, really needs