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Student Question | Should We Think
Twice Before Buying Online?
By MICHAEL GONCHAR FEBRUARY 23, 2016 5:30 AM February 23, 2016
5:30 am Comment
With the click of a button, we can
have almost anything delivered right to our front door — sneakers, toothpaste,
even groceries. But what’s the environmental cost of all those home deliveries?
The billions of discarded cardboard boxes and fleets of trucks zipping around
neighborhoods?
Should we think twice before making
online purchases?
In “E-Commerce: Convenience Built on
a Mountain of Cardboard,” Matt Richtel writes:
Ruchit Garg, a Silicon Valley
entrepreneur, says that he worries that something isn’t right with his Internet
shopping habit. With each new delivery to his doorstep — sometimes several in a
day — he faces the source of his guilt and frustration: another cardboard box.
Then, when he opens the shipment, he
is often confronted with a Russian nesting doll’s worth of boxes inside boxes
to protect his electronics, deodorant, clothing or groceries. Mr. Garg
dutifully recycles, but he shared his concerns recently on Twitter.
A handful of scientists and policy
makers are circling the same question, grappling with the long-term
environmental effect of an economy that runs increasingly on gotta-have-it-now
gratification. This cycle leads consumers to expect that even their modest
wants can be satisfied like urgent needs, and not always feel so great about
it.
The article continues:
The environmental cost can include
the additional cardboard — 35.4 million tons of containerboard were produced in
2014 in the United States, with e-commerce companies among the fastest-growing
users — and the emissions from increasingly personalized freight services.
“There’s a whole fleet of trucks
circulating through neighborhoods nonstop,” said Dan Sperling, the founding
director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of
California, Davis, and the transportation expert on the California Air
Resources Board. He also is overseeing a new statewide task force of trucking
companies and government officials trying to reduce overall emissions from
freight deliveries, including for e-commerce.
Dr. Sperling said that consumers
shared as much responsibility for the environmental cost of the deliveries as
the companies that provided the speedy services.
“From a sustainability perspective,
we’re heading in the wrong direction,” he said.
After reading the article, Jamie
Gleklen and Robert Schwartz, two members of our new Student Council, wondered:
In what ways does the Internet hurt and help the environment? How can we
balance convenience with environmental consciousness? And do we have a duty to
look after the environment if companies already say that they are working on
it?
Students: Read the article, then tell
us …
— How much do you shop online? How
about your family?
— Have you ever thought about the
environmental impact of buying things online? Is it something we should worry
about? Should we think twice before making online purchases?
— Are there times when shopping in a
brick-and-mortar store makes more sense than buying online, or vice versa? Why?
— Do you have any ideas about how the
e-commerce industry and consumers can make online shopping a more sustainable
practice? Explain.
