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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 $119 annually. A 2017 study by UPS found that nearly all (96%) US customers had made a purchase on a marketplace like Amazon or Walmart, and over half (55%) said free or discounted shipping was the primary reason.
[...] That convenience is encouraging people in the US to buy more, and to make more individual purchases rather than placing a single order for several items. "There are more sales in lower-price products online than there have been in stores," Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor at the NPD Group, told BuzzFeed News. And all of those transactions are negatively impacting our planet, according to Miguel Jaller, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis: "People are consuming more. There's more demand created by the availability of these cheap products and cheap delivery options."
[...] That convenience is encouraging people in the US to buy more, and to make more individual purchases rather than placing a single order for several items. "There are more sales in lower-price products online than there have been in stores," Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor at the NPD Group, told BuzzFeed News. And all of those transactions are negatively impacting our planet, according to Miguel Jaller, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis: "People are consuming more. There's more demand created by the availability of these cheap products and cheap delivery options."
Small items cost more on Prime than they do at Walmart. The costs are right there for anybody who understands the Price Mechanism as an element of basic economics.
Oh, wait, it's *fucking Buzzfeed* on /. again. GDI.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.)
Ordering more stuff online, spread out over even more separate deliveries causes more resources to be used to ship the extra stuff you're ordering more often.
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. . . .
If you're not a religious environmentalist, your Amazon packages aren't a sin.
This is a classic misunderstanding of opportunity cost. Comparing the scenarios as if the alternative is for the packages to materialize in your house via a Star Trek-style transporter and zero pollution.
If Amazon weren't shipping the items to you, you would probably drive to a local store to buy it. Multiple stores if you're buying a variety of things. In the vast majority of cases, that will burn more fuel and cause more pollution than delivery via UPS. The average UPS driver makes about 120 deliveries a day, driving about 150 miles. So total vehicle-miles per package is only about 1.25 miles. (The longer cross-state transport would've happened anyway delivering the item you bought to your local store.)
The excess packaging part I agree with. I peeves me that when Amazon is running promotions like their "$1 digital credit for slower shipping", it's per order rather than per item, or per $x spent. It encourages me to save my items for later, and purchase them one at a time, rather than put them all in one order which can be shipped in a single box. To their credit, I've found that if I place multiple orders in rapid succession, they're smart enough to consolidate all of them into a single shipment.
I started using Amazon Locker and will probably use that exclusively for everything that is eligible. It's faster and probably better for the environment as it's one less address they have to deliver to. Plus it's one less middle man and one less opportunity for the package to be stolen. They could also probably ditch the boxes as well when using locker, or use reusable containers or something. I don't need the box, just my stuff that's in the box.
You're burning gasoline, which dumps stuff in the atmosphere. You're using public roads, which are heavily subsidized. The people who work at WalMart are also getting food stamps or other welfare. All that for a $1.39 tube of toothpaste.
Face it, we're connected as hell. Everyfuckingthing we do has hidden costs. Get over with it, it's called modern living.
So true. Go to any apartment complex and there is a garbage bin by the mailboxes just for junk mail that is always full. They may as well be sending their mail directly to a dumpster.
I have no idea how the Amazon system compares to the Walmart system environmentally and taking one element of the system and making a comparison does not help to rectify that. In fact, this was cherry-picked in a big way. What about some of the other factors?
What's the environmental costs of everyone individually driving to Walmart to pick up goods as opposed to trucks delivering to many people in one pass through a route?
The brick and mortar system has a lot more, well, brick and mortar that has a remarkably short lifetime and takes up much space. Amazon has about 150 fulfillment centers to Walmart's 175 or so distribution centers and 4000+ stores over 3000 of which are in the 140,000 sq ft size range. Walmarts buildings plus parking lots cover over 90 square miles. All of those buildings and parking lots have an environmental cost.
It also appears to be less employee efficient even counting delivery personnel. The total of all Amazon and all UPS employees is less than half of Walmart's while sales have surpassed the halfway point. The environmental cost of the lives of the employees involved should be counted in a full accounting of the cost of an industry. An industry is nothing without employees.
I do not believe that brick and mortar, in general, will ever measure up to delivery if you really dig into the full system environmental costs.
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. 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.
Maybe prices don't differentiate between environmentally efficient or wasteful options. Maybe there are some externalities that enable Amazon to ship goods cheaper than they should be. But gas still costs money. Electricity too. More trucking miles = more trucks needed, more driver time, and more maintenance to do on those trucks. And with Amazon being a for-profit company, those extra costs will have to be recouped somehow. Either in higher prices for products, or higher prices for premium services.
So grandparent is right. The only thing (possibly) hidden is how end-user pricing is calculated.
Don't forget on top of that Amazon has a number of products that ship in low-waste packaging, whereas if I bought from Target or Walmart I'd be buying a package with quite a lot more plastic aimed at theft and tampering prevention.
I think that balances out the extra boxes you may get from time to time (which are not as bad for landfills as other things).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Indeed, it is all around worse for me to drive to Fry's. It's worse environmentally for everyone to drive to Fry's rather than have a single truck carry all the items to their neighborhood. It's worse in terms of spending my time and money driving to Fry's and hoping it's in stock.
Lowest cost, both environmental cost and dollar cost, may be ordering at Walmart.com and picking up at the local Walmart store while I'm already there getting groceries. The delivery trucks are already driving to Walmart. So the environmental cost is approximately zero that way. Similarly for the economic cost. I'm already going to Walmart anyway, so there is no additional cost for picking up an item I ordered while I'm there.
The potential downside to ordering at Walmart.com and picking up at the store happens when I need the item in 24-48 hours. Walmart.com is often not the fastest method.
Having extra food around is not âoehoardingâ, itâ(TM)s common sense as anyone who has had to ride out a bad storm could tell you...
Having some bulk food items (like a huge bag of rice) not only gives you a lot of margin for eating, it can also save you a ton of money (as long as you are careful not to buy anything youâ(TM)ll waste much of)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You don't know my sister! Loves to shop, loves it. Groceries at least twice a week. A trip to the mall twice a week. Costco three times a month. Then there are the specialty shops and the book store.
Fine, but she's a terrible driver. Terrible, and she puts a LOT of miles on that tired old Honda. Her mind seems to wander, just as her lane wanders as she passes from one stop light to another. I gotta tell you it's a frightening thing to watch.
Her friends and I are trying to wean her from the car as a matter of public safety. We talk about the joys of Amazon Prime and Next Day Delivery and the fun of opening packages when they arrive. We talk about the dangers of 'other' drivers during her travels and the rising cost of insurance and other auto expenses. It's not easy to get her off the road, but maybe Amazon can do it.
Would you rather share the road with her, and twenty like her, or with a single Amazon driver?
...omphaloskepsis often...
We use it all the time. I'd much rather get one box then several spread out over multiple days. I don't care if it delays things a few days. The only exception is when I need something immediately and I can't get it from a local store.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
because I got tired of going to a store to find them and either not finding them or having to search for half an hour-45 minutes because stores like to hide such things so I'll go all over and maybe pick up 5 or 6 other things.
Brick & Mortar Stores did several things that have pushed me away. First, they used computers to figure out exactly what sells and only stock that. Meaning if I want something that folks don't buy every single day I've got to go online, and if I'm going online I might as well skip the trip. Second, they took the "milk at the back of the store" philosophy to crazy heights and put everything I buy routinely at the maximum distance from each other, making shopping an all around miserable experience. Oh, and they massively understaff their stores to save money on wages (while cutting pay and benefits) meaning everybody at any store I shop at is just as miserable as I am.
Is it any wonder I avoid shopping in stores as much as possible?
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The NG that comes into your house is barely above atmospheric pressure.
Then tap off the NG for the cars before the regulator, the street service line is likely 200 PSI.
The NG tank for a vehicle is above 2000 psi.
A quick Google search tells me it's more like 3000 PSI.
You have to compress that which takes a very specialized compressor.which is VERY inefficient and power hungry.
Then build filling stations that can take advantage of economies of scale, and can tap off a feeder line that runs as high as 1500 PSI. The choices people have now for cars in the USA are limited to gasoline and electric. People aren't buying electric because they don't like the idea of having to take hours for a recharge, they don't have quick charge stations available to them, and/or they can't have a car charger at home (such as for people that rent or have an older home with substandard electrical service).
CNG is not perfect, but it's better than gasoline or diesel fuel.
I recall someone talking about people protesting the importation of endangered species to a ranch in the USA. The rancher was going to breed the animals in a large fenced off ranch and sell tickets for people to go on a "safari" to hunt them. The alternative was to leave the animals in Africa where they would likely go extinct from poachers and predators. They brought the protesters on TV to interview them and they looked like idiots, arguing that the animals should stay where they are. They didn't want them hunted, because hunting is "bad". The rancher explained that unless he could make money off the animals then he could not afford to breed them, and the ones he already imported would have to be euthanized or set out in the wild to die. Nope, they argued, can't have that, there must be no hunting.
These kind of people will get us all killed trying to save the environment.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Amazon is actually pushing their AMZL service to do just that. They've talked about letting other companies us it. Eventually, it could be general-purpose delivery service. Only problem is they totally suck at actually delivering stuff, so that's maybe more of a distant goal.
I don't know, but it works for me.
Why not beef up the Amazon Locker program, in which Amazon delivers to lockers placed in a local store. If Amazon were to buy out a chain of gas station convenience stores, which it could do or couch cushion change, each location could be both an Amazon pickup point and a place to get the sort of last-minute essentials that such stores normally carry. This would be an especially good deal for the young working people who are usually not home when the UPS man comes.
There's no free lunch! Shipping companies don't work for free. When Amazon or any other mail order vendor does not pay the FeEX, UPS, USPS or other shipper, then I'll believe shipping is free. And then there's the environmental costs of getting a product to the purchaser.
A correct statement would be, "Shipping cost included in purchase price." I believe this statement, or something that says the same thing, should be required by law for mail order vendors not including a shipping cost in the invoice.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
If a truck delivers to ten houses, that's better than ten people traveling to the store.
Fucking morons.
I hate these types of "studies", because it's inevitably just someone trying to think up another reason the environment is getting destroyed, without looking at the bigger picture.
Whether you use "expedited shipping" or not, the shipper gets paid their negotiated rate to deliver that box. Part of the way the shipper makes it cost effective is by ensuring the delivery truck is as full as possible. There are enough packages going around so they're going to accomplish that consistently, regardless of if your particular order has been consolidated into one box or not.
If you're simply arguing that receiving your order in separate boxes creates more waste? I'd say that first of all, the Amazon boxes I've seen are typically put into recycling bins, so they're not just adding to landfills. (If they are, then you need to take that up with the recycling company, who is apparently not really doing what they say they're doing.) But second? I suspect many, many people do what I do with these boxes; hang onto most of them to re-use them when we ship things back out! Before Amazon, I sometimes had to actually pay for a shipping box before I could send a product out to a buyer on eBay or elsewhere. Now, I almost always have a suitably sized box on-hand from the Prime boxes I saved in my garage. I reuse the packing material inside the boxes too.
when a business is positioning itself to become a monopoly. Amazon doesn't make enough money to satisfy a normal shareholder. They're being allowed to bring in very little profit relative to their size with the understanding that once their competitors are out of business they can charge whatever they want.
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99% of the time, my packages are delivered via USPS... which makes a trip to my house 6 days a week already. The only time an extra vehicle is involved is when it is Sunday.
And as someone else pointed out, the volume effect works in the environment's favor like mass transit. They're not going to send out 1 vehicle for each package. There will be much, much more. So which is more environmentally friendly? The USPS dispatching 4 vans to deliver 25 packages each (total 100) or have 100 people drive individually to get to the store(s) they could buy the items locally.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
Umm, did nobody see this "study" was done by UPS,the guys that DON'T ship their stuff?
In theory, yes, there could be a higher environmental cost to making small deliveries. But then the delivery driver's route will depend on what else they are delivering. Marginally, there is only a small environmental cost of going from one stop to the next. Regardless of whether you've bought anything or not, there is likely to be a delivery van in your neighbourhood on any given day.
And even that cost can be reduced by the delivery firm investing in lower emission vehicles.
Compare that to the emissions and the traffic caused by people choosing to drive to their "local" stores instead.
Well it's obvious that you've never worked in the shipping business. You have no clue what next day does to things.
You're right. It's very important that some bimbo gets yet another piece of trash the next day so she can misplace it.
Yea, I'm a father. Things can wait.
I needed a car charger for my phone and the ones in the back of the store were $10-$15 and the ones at the cash register were $6. Go figure.
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Wow. Modded twice for troll! LOL.
I've been investing for years and read many blogs that are the precursors to these articles. They are almost always written by or based on information pushed forward by shorts.
I have traced the activities of the shorts in social media and found them manipulating through general social media in addition to their activities on the investment boards. I've done well very well the last couple of years by spotting their campaigns in social media, waiting for the stock hit to materialize, buying into the artificially lowered stock, and selling after it recovers the loss (my target is around 10% gain) in a week or two.
This is a real phenomenon and is the reason articles like this are posted. It's all about money.
Last night I bought a battery on amazon and was offered free two day shipping. Upon purchase I noticed a welcome to Prime sign which, upon clicking, gave little intimation that I had somehow joined Prime but it raised my suspicions so I started looking around and i was about to be charged $12.99/month for something i didn't agree to join. Fuck Amazon and fuck Prime.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
...of all the cars that are NOT on the road burning gas, polluting the air because people are shopping online instead. That's a LOT of cars,SUVs,etc. We all save gas buying online instead of running around the town buying stuff.
True. I just got a small generator. 46 pounds and USPS delivered it. I expected UPS to bring it due to the weight/size. A lot of what I buy comes by the postman most of the time instead of UPS/FedEx.