Even big companies are eyeing the practice Apple announced last week that it would allow customers to repair their own iPhones, a giant shift in how they approach devices. Was there a way, I wondered, to keep getting that nice little feeling I get when I buy something without also ruining the planet? Advocates talk of a Circular Economy where, instead of buying things, using them, and throwing them away, we reduce what we buy and reuse a lot more stuff. Read More: How American Shoppers Broke the Supply Chain Forecasters are predicting even more spending in a holiday season where some families may be seeing each other for the first time in two years. shoppers spent a record $638 billion in October at stores and restaurants, up 22% from October 2019. And even as scientists try to capture our attention about the urgency of reducing emissions, we’re consuming more and more. COP26 reminded me that nearly half-45%-of greenhouse gas emissions come from the way we make and use products and food, meaning that this consumption that drives our economy is also choking the planet.
This year, I was feeling too guilty to buy my family new holiday gifts from Amazon. I’ve tried to look away as we devour resources like trees, water, and rare earth minerals in the pursuit of making more, more, more. I’ve interviewed Amazon workers about the physical demands of packing goods in the fast-moving warehouses that provide much of the stuff we buy, and I’ve even undertaken the stressful toll of delivering Amazon packages myself.
I’ve talked to truckers who spend weeks living out of their vehicles, prohibited from using the bathrooms at the warehouses where they’re waiting for hours to unload goods, all to get paid barely minimum wage. I’ve seen cargo ships idling off the coast of Long Beach because the ports are so backlogged, containers stacked high as apartment buildings, the horizon a smoggy cloud of emissions.
And there are plenty of real benefits to our incredibly efficient online shopping network: grocery shipping is shrinking food deserts, rural communities with few store options can quickly and easily get items they otherwise couldn’t have, and the time we used to spend driving to stores and searching for things that may have been out of stock we can now spend more productively.īut over the last few years, I’ve had a front-row seat to all the problems created by Americans’ obsession with shopping. I love the double dopamine hit that comes from buying something new-the rush when you click “purchase,” and the second one when it arrives at your door and you tear open the box.