Go green: sustainability and the future of shopping

With the continued growth in global population ,our world seems to get smaller ,and our resources seem to become more insufficient. And with the advent of e-commerce ,online shopping has become a bigger part of our daily lives as consumers. But, can sustainability and online shopping, go hand and hand in the future?

Long before e-commerce became a big hit, people have been trying to incorporate environment protection and sustainability in their shopping routine. Government environment agencies created policies on recovering, reusing and recycling of plastic ,glass, paper, rubber and other waste materials. Some local government units implemented a ban on the use of plastic shopping bags to avoid excessive plastic usage which is one of the major causes of pollution in rivers and oceans. Even when disposed properly, plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose and these often end up clogging our waterways or getting ingested by animals like sea turtles that mistakenly see these plastics as their favorite treat, jellyfish. It is also unwise to burn plastic since it is made from petroleum which release harmful toxic chemicals into the air when burned, that further depletes the ozone layer and aggravates global warming. And so, people were encouraged to bring reusable shopping cloth bags when they went to groceries or markets. For those who forgot their cloth bags, well they either opted for the good old brown paper bag, but if they wanted a more dependable shopping bag, they had to pay an extra amount for a cloth bag or a cheaper biodegradable plastic bag made from eco friendly, biodegradable materials.

Then e-commerce started to take on the market ,and online shopping became a norm for many consumers. With just one touch of a finger, an item can be sold or bought online.

Aside from the regular COD or cash on delivery , other manual payment options were introduced like remittance centers and bank deposit. Many more online payment options were made available to the public such as credit/debit card, online bank payment, mobile phone apps and more. Social media ads also helped in promoting products and services on the internet.

While it may seem that with online shopping there'd be less use of plastic bags since people need not carry items, plastic is still used as protection of the package. But what consumers can do is to recycle these plastic packages as handicraft or sell them to plastic recycling plants to be processed. Or perhaps dependable indigenous materials can be used as packaging materials for products that will be shipped to customers. Ultimately, it is in the hands of the sellers and buyers on how they can make online selling a sustainable industry.