Period 9/10 Blog #7

Your comment post should be at least 270 words this week due Thursday by 11:59 pm (worth 70 points) and you will be responsible for responding (respectfully) to one of your classmates in at least a one paragraph reply entries by Sunday at 11:59 pm (worth 30 points).

Student Question | Should We Think Twice Before Buying Online?

By MICHAEL GONCHAR  FEBRUARY 23, 2016 5:30 AM February 23, 2016 5:30 am Comment

With the click of a button, we can have almost anything delivered right to our front door — sneakers, toothpaste, even groceries. But what’s the environmental cost of all those home deliveries? The billions of discaded cardboard boxes and fleets of trucks zipping around neighborhoods?

Should we think twice before making online purchases?

In “E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard,” Matt Richtel writes:

Ruchit Garg, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, says that he worries that something isn’t right with his Internet shopping habit. With each new delivery to his doorstep — sometimes several in a day — he faces the source of his guilt and frustration: another cardboard box.

Then, when he opens the shipment, he is often confronted with a Russian nesting doll’s worth of boxes inside boxes to protect his electronics, deodorant, clothing or groceries. Mr. Garg dutifully recycles, but he shared his concerns recently on Twitter.

A handful of scientists and policy makers are circling the same question, grappling with the long-term environmental effect of an economy that runs increasingly on gotta-have-it-now gratification. This cycle leads consumers to expect that even their modest wants can be satisfied like urgent needs, and not always feel so great about it.

The article continues:

The environmental cost can include the additional cardboard — 35.4 million tons of containerboard were produced in 2014 in the United States, with e-commerce companies among the fastest-growing users — and the emissions from increasingly personalized freight services.

“There’s a whole fleet of trucks circulating through neighborhoods nonstop,” said Dan Sperling, the founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, and the transportation expert on the California Air Resources Board. He also is overseeing a new statewide task force of trucking companies and government officials trying to reduce overall emissions from freight deliveries, including for e-commerce.

Dr. Sperling said that consumers shared as much responsibility for the environmental cost of the deliveries as the companies that provided the speedy services.

“From a sustainability perspective, we’re heading in the wrong direction,” he said.

After reading the article, Jamie Gleklen and Robert Schwartz, two members of our new Student Council, wondered: In what ways does the Internet hurt and help the environment? How can we balance convenience with environmental consciousness? And do we have a duty to look after the environment if companies already say that they are working on it?

Students: Read the article, then tell us …

— How much do you shop online? How about your family?

— Have you ever thought about the environmental impact of buying things online? Is it something we should worry about? Should we think twice before making online purchases?

— Are there times when shopping in a brick-and-mortar store makes more sense than buying online, or vice versa? Why?

— Do you have any ideas about how the e-commerce industry and consumers can make online shopping a more sustainable practice? Explain.