I did most of my holidays shopping this year online, and I gotta say, it was pretty great. Out with the shopping malls, screaming children, and parking lots, and in with the convenience of one-click purchases, customer reviews, and doing it all the while still in my pajamas. And what made it even sweeter? Free Amazon Prime for students for 6 months. Suddenly, instead of waiting anxiously for a package that could arrive anywhere from a week to two weeks, I would get it in two days. I was sold.
However, as the packages started rolling in, and as the thrill of actually getting something in the mail began to fade, I started noticing how much packaging was being used in transporting these things to my doorstep– bags within crumpled paper balls, within boxes. And then I started thinking about how the UPS driver would have had to drive all the way out to campus, just to leave the package in my mailbox, and how they would have to do this for each of 76% of Canadians that have online shopped in the past year– While I can try to reduce my personal greenhouse gas emissions by buying local produce, walking or biking or taking public transit, and using reusable containers, there simply doesn’t seem to be an option for this in regards to online shopping and ecommerce.
Some argue that the rise of ecommerce could actually be reducing greenhouse gasses in other ways, such as reducing the need for people to drive to brick and mortar stores, but this doesn’t seem to be true as well, as it seems that shoppers still like to go to stores to view items, or to return things. As a result, the rise in online shopping just yields a higher number of cars and trucks on the road and more cardboard and plastic packaging in landfills or recycling plants.
It’s a tough call to make, between convenience and environmental impact. Will I stop buying things online entirely? Not likely. Is this an issue that ecommerce retailers need to address? I’d hope so. Perhaps a problem for innovations such as mushroom packaging or electric self driving cars to shine, but until then, I’ll be thinking twice before hitting “buy” on Amazon checkout.