This is the best way to shop if you want to help the environment
Shipping every item individually makes online shopping a huge burden on the environment (Unsplash/)We’re shopping online more than ever now, including for mundane personal care and pantry items. Of U.S. internet users, one-third do it at least once a week. Seeing your toilet paper dwindle, you might pull up your smartphone and after a few taps have a fresh order of TP set to arrive in a day, maybe even less, and all done right from the toilet seat. But this type of shopping—small, quick-to-ship orders placed through e-tailing companies like Amazon—might be the worst for the environment, according to a recent study in Environmental Science & Technology. With their current business model of free shipping and fast delivery, greenhouse gas emissions associated with transporting “fast consumer goods”—personal, home, and pantry items—are high. “The [online-only retailers] are growing rapidly,” says lead author Sadegh Shahmohammadi, a sustainability scientist at Radboud University...