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."

Comments

Best environmental solution: urbanism

[b0s0z0ku]

Best environmental solution -- live in a city where you can walk or bike to the store. Delivery to stores is centralized and generally less environmentally costly than stopping at every suburban house. Walking or biking to pick up your goods is also less environmentally impactful than driving. (And yes, it's possible to do this with a family -- many people outside the US live that way, and it works well.)

Re:Not quite accurate

[fermion]

It is also not what the article says. It says the there is significant savings in resources when we use delivery, if the company can schedule the deliver. Amazon shows you on a map where the trucks are and you can tell if they stop or go directly to your house. In may case, when they make a delivery there are always a lot of stops between the warehouse and me, and there is almost always a delivery within a few blocks of me. I don't see how getting in my car and using half a gallon of gas is more efficient their computer scheduled delivery with presumable is optimized to minimize resources. Perhaps in rural and suburban areas this is not the case, but I have no problem substituting a trip to the store for delivery.

The article also makes the dubious implication that we are continuing to go to the store in the same numbers while the number of delivery vans have doubled. I think the reason that this FUD is published is precisely because we are making fewer trips to the store. I know in my area the number of malls have decreased, the strip malls have become much more specialized and directed, such as coffee and head shops, I question if substituting professional drivers for amateurs just going to get a jug of milk is a bad thing.

Another magical statement is that people just order any tiny quantity and put it in a box. While Amazon prime allows you to order anything, prime now and free same day delivery require a minimum order. In terms of Amazon putting delivery vehicles on the road, this is the primary reason. In my case at least normal delivers are still non-amazon services. These trucks would be on the road no matter what, and obviously it is more efficient for the trucks to be full and making a full run of deliveries to a localize area that to be driving all over town make a few deliveries.

What we are seeing here is the simple economics of scale. It is why Walmart can sell stuff cheap. Put all the stuff in a big box and have customers waste gas and build up congestion by driving 10 miles to the nearest store. Amazon simply takes this to the next level. Put everything in a even bigger box, where you don't have to waste volume and associated climate control costs to deal with customers, save money and hidden costs of using plastic bags by packing things in nice recyclable boxes that do no kill the marine life, and more efficiently use the existing infrastructure to get things to the people.

It is like Sears. Sure they killed the general store, sure they destroyed the environment by publishing books that most people did not read, encouraging the polluting trains to increase their travel, and introduced heavy metals into the environment when the catalogs were disposed, but I don't think any of us want to go back to only buying what the guy on the corner thinks we deserve.

I fully expect the next article to be on the evils of computers. They waste electricity and resources as most people only use them for email and looking stuff up. If people would only buy a set of encyclopedias, a few magazine subscriptions, and send real letters through the post office,we would see a US that completely energy independent and roads that have no significant traffic.

Re:NOT hidden

[hawguy]

Trucks can't drive around extra miles at US$0 / mile cost. No matter how cheap the gas or how little they pay their drivers.

That's only relevant if you think the price of fuel or wages includes all environmental costs.

Re:NOT hidden

[AmiMoJo]

There are a few really easy things we could do to lessen the environmental impact of deliveries.

Deliver stuff to where people work. Most businesses get a lot of deliveries anyway, and are often located close to other businesses and delivery locations.

Deliver stuff to lockers at shopping centres or local shops. Incentivise with slightly lower costs. People can walk to the local shop or were going to the shopping centre anyway. That might also help keep shopping centres alive.