SALT LAKE CITY — Are you ready to shop? Fill your physical and virtual shopping cart until it overflows, or your computer crashes?

Black Friday is here. Although the day of discounts used to revolve around waking up early to head to your local Best Buy or Target, it’s starting to shift online.

Last year, online sales on Black Friday increased by 23.6% and the United States Postal Service is predicting that it will deliver 800 million packages this holiday season

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E-commerce is taking over driven by the dominance of Amazon and continuing pressure on brick and mortar retail outlets. The story of this shift has focused mostly on lower prices and convenience. An untold part of the story is a rising concern over the environmental impact of straight-to-your-door deliveries: from extra freight vehicles on the road to heaps of cardboard waste. 

Yes, there’s been a steady push to buy used goods, and be more thoughtful about consumption, but Americans are still in the habit of going a little haywire over the holidays. The National Retail Federation predicted that 114.6 million people will shop on Black Friday and 68.7 on Cyber Monday. 

A truck leaves a UPS facility in West Valley City, Utah, on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019. | Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

With the biggest consumer bonanza upon us, it’s a good time to consider the impact of the way you shop. Is the shift to online shopping hurting the environment? And are there ways to fulfill your urge to buy while still minimizing the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and eventually throwing unwanted clothes, books, or knick knacks into a landfill?

Faster shipping

One of the biggest problems with ordering online is the shift to faster delivery.

If you’re going to shop online there are ways to do it that limit the carbon impact. In fact, if you choose a slower shipping option and maximize the number of items you order, it can be better than driving to a store 10 to 15 miles from your home.

But, when you choose one- or two-day shipping, many of the potential benefits of shopping online get wiped out, said Miguel Jaller, a professor in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California and co-director of Sustainable Freight Research Center.

Thanks in part to Amazon, Americans have come to expect one- or two-day shipping. In order to fulfill those promises, Amazon is contracting with hundreds of third-party companies, and adding thousands of vans to the road in addition to the heavy duty trucks that the Postal Service and companies like FedEx already deploy. And more cars on the road means more carbon dioxide emissions.

Jaller’s advice to the consumer: consider choosing a slower shipping option.

Did you say returns are free?

Online commerce is all about convenience, and one of the things that makes it convenient are free returns. Retailers sometimes opt to just throw returns away, especially items like cosmetics. In 2018, returned merchandise created 5 billion tons of waste that ended up in landfills and caused 15 million tons of CO2 to be emitted, according to returns optimization firm Optoro’s Impact Report.

There are a total of 2,611 landfills in the United States, according to the EPA. That number has been increasing since the 1990s, while recycling declined from 2016 to 2017. Returns are adding to that problem.

Plus, making a return means two trips through the delivery cycle, and additional cardboard and packing material used.

A truck moves through a lot at the Amazon fulfillment center in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019. | Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

Cardboard is piling up

When you order something online, it usually comes in a cardboard box, and those boxes are piling up across the nation. 

Cardboard use increased by 8% in the past five years even as recycling of the material went down (the market for cardboard has been volatile), according to USA Today.

About 165 billion packages are shipped each year. The cardboard used for those packages is the equivalent to chopping down about 1 billion trees, Fast Company reported. 

Recycling material like cardboard also has a negative environmental impact — from transporting the material to repurposing it into something new.

Much of Utah’s recycling material gets shipped to states like Washington, Oregon and Idaho or other countries like China, to be processed and reused, the Deseret News reported in May. And, of course, transporting the recyclables creates additional carbon emissions.

Plus, the entire recycling industry has been struggling the past year. China used to be the largest importer of plastic and paper materials, but in 2018 the country placed a ban on importing many of the materials in “an effort to halt a deluge of soiled and contaminated materials that was overwhelming Chinese processing facilities,” according to an article published by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. By one estimate, 40% of items put in recycling bins in Utah ultimately end up in landfills now. 

Companies like Amazon have been working to reduce the size and number of cardboard boxes used by using slimmer plastic mailers and fewer boxes that go over the original manufacturer’s box. According the company, over the past decade they’ve reduced  244,000 tons of packing material used in shipments. But as e-commerce grows — one scholar estimated it now makes up about a third of the U.S. domestic package market — that may not be enough.

What you can do

So, how do you approach holiday shopping without incurring dread and guilt? Or end up with a sad, gift-less, Christmas morning that makes the kids cry and incurs the wrath of your spouse?

Well, there are a few ways you can shop this holiday season while still reducing your impact.

For instance, you can go to a local thrift or antique store and buy something that’s been gently used and limit the number of natural resources used that go into making something new. If you live somewhere without one, you can check out the many online options that have popped up — from places like threadUP or the RealReal, which offers luxury items you might not otherwise be able to afford. Buying used doesn’t have to mean buying something inferior. Even trendy Instagram influencers are doing it.

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Or, you can pay for experiences rather than things for your loved ones. You could buy a National Parks Pass, or, simply plan a special picnic or outing. “Think of something where you can involve your family and create memories,” Kara Griffin, a retired mental health counselor who runs several Facebook groups dedicated to sustainability said.

If you do find yourself needing to order on Amazon, try to plan ahead and pick a slower shipping option and place your entire order at once, rather than making several small purchases and trips to the store.

You can opt into making a gift. You can bake cookies to hand out to your friends and family, write something meaningful, or create a scrapbook. Handmade gifts aren’t just something kids can do.

“There’s so many other choices,” Griffin said. It’s just about being intentional, and thinking through those choices before you buy.

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