Is online shopping eco-friendly?

• Position: Your Life - Brief Article

Online shopping is hailed for being convenient and time-saving. Yet, do the benefits outweigh potentially nonenvironmental-friendly side effects? Take product packaging, for instance. Goods purchased at retail outlets usually are delivered to stores in bulk, but those arriving at mailboxes or doorsteps often require individual packaging--resulting in greater waste, according to Fritz Yambrach, a professor of packaging science at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology.

"The product distribution system for Internet sales--similar to mail-order catalogues--normally requires more packaging material because the wholesale-retail system is circumvented," he points out. Further, even though consumers save gasoline by shopping online, most products still must be shipped--meaning energy consumption and pollution by society as a whole likely are...