When You Return Those Pants, the Planet Pays the
Price
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/opinion/online-shopping-return-environment.html
Because returns are so expensive for online retailers, companies have focused on making the process as cheap and easy as possible — for themselves — and for the most part, the planet pays the price. Online returns create 16 million tons of carbon emissions or the equivalent of 3.5 million cars on the road for an entire year.
It’s often cheaper for the seller to simply throw the item away than to inspect for damage, repackage and resell.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/opinion/online-shopping-return-environment.html
Because returns are so expensive for online retailers, companies have focused on making the process as cheap and easy as possible — for themselves — and for the most part, the planet pays the price. Online returns create 16 million tons of carbon emissions or the equivalent of 3.5 million cars on the road for an entire year.
It’s often cheaper for the seller to simply throw the item away than to inspect for damage, repackage and resell.
You don’t need everything you want
https://www.vox.com/money/24009905/money-personal-finance-goals-expectations-needs-vs-wants-economy
Emily Stewart:
There is nowhere you can look in society that isn’t screaming at us to spend, spend, spend — and, frankly, we view it as un-American to live any other way. It causes us to conflate nonessentials with essentials; we don’t just want the thing, we feel like we have to have it.
Modern technology puts all of this on overdrive. To “keep up with the Joneses” means contemplating an expanding universe of Joneses, because we’re not just comparing ourselves with our neighbors but also with that TikTok mom and YouTube hustler who seem to have everything figured out. The availability of so much information makes what’s possible a presence in our daily lives in a way that was much less salient a generation and two generations ago. If XYZ is possible for someone, you get to thinking, well, why isn’t that possible for me?
https://www.vox.com/money/24009905/money-personal-finance-goals-expectations-needs-vs-wants-economy
Emily Stewart:
There is nowhere you can look in society that isn’t screaming at us to spend, spend, spend — and, frankly, we view it as un-American to live any other way. It causes us to conflate nonessentials with essentials; we don’t just want the thing, we feel like we have to have it.
Modern technology puts all of this on overdrive. To “keep up with the Joneses” means contemplating an expanding universe of Joneses, because we’re not just comparing ourselves with our neighbors but also with that TikTok mom and YouTube hustler who seem to have everything figured out. The availability of so much information makes what’s possible a presence in our daily lives in a way that was much less salient a generation and two generations ago. If XYZ is possible for someone, you get to thinking, well, why isn’t that possible for me?