The Environmental Benefits of Shopping at Your Local Bookstore

Climate change and environmental concerns are reaching the forefront of our world stage. We can give thanks to Greta Thunberg and scientists whose persistent advocacy for our environment is starting to incite change. More and more questions are arising about our individual roles in helping the environment and what those actions look like, whether it is recycling our plastic bottles, carpooling to work or school, or drinking our Starbucks coffee without a straw… but the reality is there is a lot more we could be doing. Part of our responsibility is staying informed and holding each other and our politicians accountable.

One of the ways you can do your part in helping the environment is to shop locally.

Of course, I want to focus on independent bookstores, but these statistics apply to shopping at your local stores in general. Not to mention all the benefits to your local community when you shop locally.

Amazon’s Prime one-day-shipping model is having a detrimental impact on the environment and the reality of this impact is only slowly being unveiled. Prime one-day shipping is convenient, so easy that most people don’t ever question the processes and impact of receiving their product within 24 hours. I’m here to relay some of the research and facts behind the consequences of Amazon’s e-commerce model as well as the benefits of shopping locally.

Here’s how shopping at your local bookstores can aid the environment:

Less Fuel Transportation

Did you know that Amazon consumes over 40% of all online retail sales, and according to the Internet Retailer, consumers spend almost $310 billion on Amazon each year?

The fuel from cars and trucks delivering Amazon products are leaving their large carbon footprint in our streets.

“But you waste just as much fuel driving yourself!”

This has been proven not to be the case, according to the University of Washington Supply Chain & Logistics Center, who research the effects of e-commerce transportation both on the ground and in the air.

“Commercial trucks are heavier and higher-polluting per mile [than passenger vehicles],” said Goodchild. Trucks run on diesel, which is more fuel efficient than gasoline, but produces four times more nitrogen dioxide pollution and 22 times more particulates than petrol.

Less Air Pollutants

Not only gas from the delivery trucks, but also pollution from air shipping is contributing to climate change. Planes produce CO2 - the gas that is largely responsible for our earth heating up. And Amazon only plans to increase their carbon emissions for the sake of convenience:

Amazon is investing more (to the tune of $1 billion) in its own fleet. “In general, if something is coming from a longer distance, it will absolutely be air shipped,” said University of Washington’s Don MacKenzie, who leads the Sustainable Transportation Lab.

Less Packaging & Waste

The amount of waste generated by e-commerce, and Amazon specifically, is having its consequences despite their “green” efforts.

As reported in Fast Company, “LimeLoop used data from USPS, FedEx, and UPS to estimate that around 165 billion packages are shipped in the U.S. each year, and then roughly calculated that the cardboard used would equate to more than 1 billion trees.”

“But cardboard is recyclable!”

We would all like to keep believing that recycling is as easy as throwing our collection of amazon boxes in a big blue bin, but do we actually know what recycling is? Where the cardboard goes? What it is magically converted into? And whether or not it is a valid excuse to keep buying and throwing away?

The reality is, the cardboard is not being recycled at the quantity or quality level that we would like to believe. Not only are people buying more and more online, but they do not know how to break down cardboard boxes in order for them to be properly recycled.

Consumers, according to a USA Today study, are bad at recycling cardboard, largely because, in the past, they haven’t had to. In 2017, domestic consumption of cardboard rose 3.5%, but 300,000 fewer tons of cardboard were recycled in the US than previous years.

So where does the cardboard go? And why is it damaging?

If you are interested in the steps in the recycling process read here. There are setbacks in each step of the recycling process when it comes to e-commerce, starting with collection. If the boxes are not broken down properly they won’t be able to be collected and sorted, and the sheer volume of cardboard is becoming a hinderance to the landfills.

In an article by Prime, they go into detail about “The life of a cardboard box” and the possible dangerous side effects they could be causing, including overfilling landfills, water contamination, and release of methane gas which has negative side effects for our atmosphere. They also predict that this problem is only getting worse, stating that “e-commerce packaging will become a $55 billion-dollar industry by 2022.”

The industry is growing without the means to support it, and in turn, the waste is clogging our landfills and damaging our environment.

We have to think before we click, and it is this awareness and thoughtfulness before purchasing a one-day shipping item that stands a chance of saving us from the sea of cardboard waste we are living in.

All this to say, buying a book at a local independent bookstore is actually the environmentally friendly choice. And, there are many other wonderful reasons to shop at your local bookstore- find out how it benefits your local community here!