It was around 2003 when e-commerce was a new concept and I placed my 1st online shopping order. It was really an amazing experience to order an item sitting in a cyber cafe and product gets delivered directly at home. I really loved the concept and started to buy products online. After 15 years 2018, a lot more has changed. Now one can order any item directly from the mobile app and within a few days products get delivered. More and more people ordering online and online shopping craze is almost at the top.
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Despite buying online whenever I get a package delivered I always felt that something is not right with online shopping. No doubt we are getting products cheaper but we are paying very high prices in the form of environmental pollution.
whenever I go for shopping always carry a reusable bag with me to reduce unnecessary consumption of plastic bag provided by shopkeeper but if I get a product delivered at my doorstep it comes with a lot of packaging materials which goes directly in the garbage. This excessive use of packaging material forced me to rethink about online shopping habit.
It is really a pain to see a small item comes in a multilayer packaging and would require no packaging material if I would have bought from a nearby shop.
If I think that I would send all packaging materials for recycling, then it is also not possible as not all packaging materials are recyclable and secondly it is again a problem to keep all these garbage at home and send for recycling. Then why I should waste my time to take care of this waste? Comparatively, I found it is better not to encourage this unnecessary packaging of any product until and unless the product is very essential for me and not available in the local market.
Of course, the online shopping trend is increasing at its highest pace but also it is a right time to think about its consequences in the future.
Can we become so selfish that for our online shopping obsession putting our mother earth in a big trouble?