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The Hidden Environmental Cost of Amazon Prime's Free, Fast Shipping (buzzfeednews.com)
Amazon's Prime Day shopping spree offers free, fast shipping -- but experts say there's a hidden environmental cost that doesn't show up on the checkout page. From a report: Expedited shipping means your packages may not be as consolidated as they could be, leading to more cars and trucks required to deliver them, and an increase in packaging waste, which researchers have found is adding more congestion to our cities, pollutants to our air, and cardboard to our landfills. Free and fast shipping has always been a Prime membership's marquee perk -- one that's drawn in over 100 million subscribers who pay $119 annually. A 2017 study by UPS found that nearly all (96%) US customers had made a purchase on a marketplace like Amazon or Walmart, and over half (55%) said free or discounted shipping was the primary reason.
[...] That convenience is encouraging people in the US to buy more, and to make more individual purchases rather than placing a single order for several items. "There are more sales in lower-price products online than there have been in stores," Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor at the NPD Group, told BuzzFeed News. And all of those transactions are negatively impacting our planet, according to Miguel Jaller, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis: "People are consuming more. There's more demand created by the availability of these cheap products and cheap delivery options."
[...] That convenience is encouraging people in the US to buy more, and to make more individual purchases rather than placing a single order for several items. "There are more sales in lower-price products online than there have been in stores," Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor at the NPD Group, told BuzzFeed News. And all of those transactions are negatively impacting our planet, according to Miguel Jaller, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis: "People are consuming more. There's more demand created by the availability of these cheap products and cheap delivery options."
I'm not sure what this guy is whinging about. From About Shipping Preferences: (emphasis mine)
Every time you place an order via the Shopping Cart that contains more than one delivery date, you can choose for your order to be shipped in the fewest possible packages or for your order to be shipped as soon as each item it becomes available.
You can change your shipping preferences in Your Account at any time after placing your order as long as the order hasn’t entered the shipping process yet.
Prime Customers
FREE Delivery in fewest possible packages
This is a free shipping option for Prime members purchasing Prime eligible items that are in stock. Your Prime orders will be consolidated into the fewest number of packages possible and may take longer to ship depending on product availability.
I want my items faster. Ship each item as soon as it becomes available
This is also a free shipping option for Prime members purchasing Prime eligible items that are in stock. Your Prime items ship as they become available. You should choose this option if you want to receive each item as fast as possible.
There are similar options for non-Prime customers.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The "hidden" cost they're talking about is NOT reflected in the price.
Anyone who's ever read Friedrich Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society" should know: externalities apart, some way, somehow any extra environmental burden (read: resource usage) will be worked into the price...
To the GP's point, the article is about environmental externalities.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
The problem is that fossil fuel use has externalities in CO2, NOx and particulates which cause climate change and damage health.
In spite of Hayek's hypothesis, this is not worked into the price. The cost of health and environmental damage is placed on all of society and never works its way back to the price you pay.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?