if it's being posted to you.... it's not eco-friendly!

[Whose]

My social media is full of ads for eco-friendly alternatives of everyday products; usually ones that have had their plastic packaging removed and are now in "pod" form.
Examples: laundry tablets, washing up liquid, deodorant, toothpaste.

Lots of BIG CLAIMS in BOLD FONT about how they're x% better for the environment and they are !!Plastic Free!! etc etc

.... and they're available by subscription, posted directly to you.

I love the fact the world is moving towards plastic free and that we are becoming more aware of buying thoughtfully. But AIBU to think that if you are taking a product that you'd usually be purchasing in your usual grocery shop, that having it mailed to you separately every month-3 months completely wipes out the environmental benefit? I can't find much info on it anywhere, but it seems like quite a glaring flaw?

I don't know. What if otherwise the person was driving to a shop to get this product, so having a delivered by someone who's driving around anyway cuts out a short, fuel inefficient journey? There would probably be too many variables to make a proper comparison.

I think it depends. If I buy a plastic bottle of laundry detergent or if I buy plastic free capsules in a plastic free packaging, the first thing I think of is that I reduced the plastic.

Is the missing plastic better than a mail delivery? You could argue that the package is coming with the regular mail anyway, most are purposely made small enough to go into a letter box, so, you have the postal run anyway.

Lots of now readily available eco friendly items started out as online delivery only and made it into the shops a lot later.

But it will have to be transported to the shop and then again from the shop to the house. It’s not as if they magically just appear in your home otherwise!

There will be a small carbon cost to posting/courier but it sill removes the plastic issue.

I live rurally. To get plastic-free household cleaners etc I'd have to drive 1.5 hrs there (3hrs return). So I understand your point but I still like to think my quarterly delivery is more eco friendly. ..maybe I'm fooling myself. Locally I can only get your usual supermarket plastic rich items.

This is why I think products and activities need some kind of scoring system so that we can see the environmental impact of different choices and make a decision based on facts rather than assumptions that a certain thing is better

Well they're either posted to individuals or transported to shops for people to buy. Unless we go back to horse and carriage, I think we need to accept some use of environmental resources.

It depends where it's shipped from. Supermarket stuff is held in warehouses first, then lorried in, then an individual car journey to go and get it (in most cases).

If the eco stuff is in a warehouse and then directly posted, surely it's the same if not less miles? I'd read somewhere that- depending on how it's done - getting stuff delivered is better because one van goes to lots of houses, rather than all those houses making lots of trips. There's also the carbon footprint of storing a large item compared to a small one.

Tbh I don't think most people know and you just have to do the best according to what makes most sense to you.

But I do find some of the eco adverts irritating - I saw one the other day for "bio cloths" that you have to throw away after 3 months into the compost (where they will decompose and give off gases), then buy new ones with the carbon footprint from constant manufacturing, as opposed to my nice cheap cloths that are 2 or 3 years old now and I wash when dirty with other household items on an eco wash (ie they are not adding a huge amount to the load).

Tbh I think that one of the best thing we can do for the environment is to buy less.

So buy the things you actually need in bulk or the biggest packaging you have space for. (Less packaging and fewer deliveries)

One van/car delivering goods is more eco friendly than multiple single cars traveling to pick up said goods.

The net transport is way lower! Straight from factory to home, rather than factory to store depot to store to home.

Plus a lot of them will be made in the UK (inc ingredients/components), so much shorter journeys overall.

Surely the carbon footprint of delivering it is mostly divided by the number of deliveries being made in the area as the courier/royal mail would be there anyway? I was shocked having something delivered to my DM, who lives rurally. The app showed where the van was - 3 min walk away - and he was still 11 stops away.

The best thing we can do for the environment is use the Internet less... it is growing non green sector. Every search produces minute amounts of greenhouse gases, every click onto a website. The massive server farms are multiplying. The power, the cooling etc etc...

Yes I'm a hypocrite, but don't let's pretend that using the Internet for anything makes us eco friendly, if you can only buy online you are relying on advertising and millions of people making millions of clicks.

How do you figure that?

Stuff from shops:
Stuff is delivered from manufacturers to distribution warehouse.
Stuff is then driven to the warehouses of various supermarkets. Each supermarket having warehouses up and down the country. So lots of lorry journeys.
Each warehouse then sends a lorry to drive the product to each store. Let’s take Sainsbury’s, that’s just over 1000 stores.
Then the customer gets in their car to drive to the store.

Posted:
Stuff arrives at warehouse from the manufacturer (assuming they aren’t the one and same).
Stuff then has a label stuck on it and put in the post.
Yes lorries will be involved in that but I’m not sure how many.
Arrives in my door.

Waste pollution and carbon pollution are two totally separate types of pollution and to say there’s no point reducing one if you can’t reduce both is over simplified.

This is basically my DH job and it is far far more complex than you have made it. YABU

It'll surely be travelling a shorter distance than if it's going to warehouses and shops before you go all the way out and back to take it home. And if it's going by Royal Mail rather than a courier, presumably it's on a delivery journey that would be made anyway. Does Royal Mail use electric vehicles?

I suppose there are too many unknown variables to be certain but for most people it would seem to be a greener option.

I agree that there is likely a harm vs benefit trade off to having eco friendly goods delivered, however I would need to see some actual data in order to believe that any benefit is entirely "wiped out". Intuitively I would still expect to see a net positive, especially if ordering in bulk, but if you have any numbers to share with us OP then I'm happy to be corrected.

How do? Bit odd!

Its simple:
If you live in a city then buying stuff online is not eco friendly
If you live rurally then buying stuff online is eco friendly

What @EggsellentSmithers said.

I remember watching a Ted Talk by a sustainable design expert. She said that she was constantly getting requests from companies to design more 'sustainable' packaging for their products. When she investigated it, she found that - unless the proper recycling facilities are available - the paper packaging option was actually more carbon intensive than the plastic packaging option. The companies didn't want to know though, they weren't interested in considering the whole lifetime of the product: they just wanted it to look more eco-friendly so they could catch a little bit more of the market. Her talk taught me that the sustainability - and otherwise - of products and packaging is vastly more complicated than we think.

'eco' packaging (paper/glass/tin) usually weighs more than plastic. and the weight alone of course costs more to transport.
plus unpackaged fresh foods spoil quicker.

but I agree I would actually want to see real life comparison for a 4 person household.

...... and all the trees cut down to make the cardboard box it is carried in? and all the energy used to convert the trees to pulp, paper and cardboard......

the answer is to buy less in the first place.

These things will eventually make it to mainstream supermarkets if it can be shown by the manufacturers that there is huge demand. I would buy them to help demonstrate a general preference for more sustainable goods with well considered lifetime impact. This should pressure supermarkets into supplying them.

The greatest power individuals have is to use Keynesian economics to force change. If demand for better choices increases then that forces retailers to provide them. And then the cost goes down as supply increases, and gradually unsustainable choices no longer appear cheaper.