Excessive packaging in online shopping

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.

http://elliottback.com/wp/excessive-amazon-packaging/

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.

Paving the way to zero waste

I really don't think a caption is necessary for anyone that has been on campus at UBC. Source: https://blogs.ubc.ca/teachereducation/2012/08/23/how-do-i-get-to-scarfe-construction-update/

I really don’t think a caption is necessary for anyone that has been on campus at UBC. Source: https://blogs.ubc.ca/teachereducation/2012/08/23/how-do-i-get-to-scarfe-construction-update/

Every morning, it’s guaranteed that I’ll wake up to one of two kinds of noise– 1) the cheering of excited parents and kids for soccer matches on the field adjacent from the apartment I rent, or 2) the clanging and banging of construction for the in-progress elementary school and condo on the other side of the block.

On my walk to school, I pass by at least three different construction projects on campus. Over the years, I can’t help but to wonder what becomes of the buildings that I’ve watched being torn down to be replaced by shinier, more modern counterparts.

Construction and demolition waste is one of the most voluminous waste streams in the developed world, creating 160 million tons of waste each year, 44% of which comes from renovations alone. While many of the disposed materials (timber, glass, metals, soils, etc) can be reused, only one third of them are recovered or recycled.

So what of the materials from our beautiful campus, UBC, one of the world’s top universities and leaders in sustainability? Doing the Google search led me down a rabbithole of articles, papers, and documents that detail UBC’s efforts to address these concerns.

Setting it into perspective, UBC currently diverts about two thirds of their operational, construction and demolition waste from the landfill, with goals to set this rate to 80% by 2020. For construction efforts specifically, it is mandatory for 75% of waste from construction on campus to be diverted , with real diversion rates exceeding this expectation by 6% in 2011. Additionally, wood, carpet tiles, metal, and components such as drywall and separated and sorted for reuse or recycle.

It’s not every day that I’m singing praise about UBC construction, but I’ll have to admit, this is one place where the institution seems to be doing a good job at practicing what they preach. Next time you make a block long detour around blue fences in the rain, rest assured that at the very least, UBC is taking some serious precaution for renovating our campus with the environment in mind.

On the quest for a more sustainable cellphone

 

An Indian boy sorts through a pile of discarded motherboards in an e-waste landfill. (Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/indias-mounting-e-waste-woes/)

Innovation is happening at a faster rate than it ever has been before, with new ideas emerging seemingly every passing second. An increasingly connected world means consumers are adopting new technologies more readily than ever before as well. The invention of the telephone took decades for people to adopt, while today the cellphone (and smartphone!) are nearly ubiquitous after only about five years of being introduced. Increase in global wealth also means the global consumption rate is higher than it’s ever been, and for increasingly complex goods, such as electronics, appliances, and automobiles.

But as suppliers and producers in the world are scaling up to accommodate for this growing demand, how are we addressing the problem of e-waste? Most electronics are not designed with ease of recycling in mind and thus are nearly impossible for the common consumer to discard of responsibly. With every discarded cellphone or earbud set, these goods are left to sit in landfills, leeching arsenic, lead and poly-brominated flame retardants into the earth or sent overseas to developing countries to be scavenged for parts in hazardous conditions.

While few companies are beginning to address these issues, such as Finnish startup Circular Devices with PuzzlePhone, a modular cellphone that features parts which are built to last, but more importantly, to be swapped out instead of discarding the entire device. Tech giants are also listening, including Google, which has their own Project Ara, whose prototypes are set for 2016.

Finding a sustainable balance between the production of these devices to accommodate for people’s changing needs, as well as the safe disposal and recycling of the components is an issue that governments, companies, and society needs to address. In the meantime, we need to do what we can as informed consumers to learn ways of reducing our impact with our use of electronics.

A few points to consider when getting started:

  • Research durability and maintenance details. Are parts replaceable? Was the product built to last?
  • Learn about local safe disposal locations (such as FreeGeek in Vancouver)
  • Research sources which are more sustainable, such as Energy-wise certification or those certified by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT).

 

Other sources:

http://curbed.com/archives/2016/01/19/sustainable-electronics-modular-phones-puzzlephone-fair-phone-phonebloks.php

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/search-smartphone-soaked-blood

http://www.green.harvard.edu/tools-resources/how/6-ways-minimize-your-e-waste