WEBVTT - How Much Cardboard Does Online Shipping Use?

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:06.680
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff. From how Stuff Works. Hey there,

0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:10.000
<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren vocal bomb here. From groceries to gadgets.

0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.320
<v Speaker 1>The home delivery of goods is depositing cardboard boxes on

0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.840
<v Speaker 1>doorsteps across America, and we've collectively fallen in love with

0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.520
<v Speaker 1>the convenience of it all. But what about the consequences

0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.079
<v Speaker 1>of all that packing material. The number of e commerce

0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.280
<v Speaker 1>transactions increased by more than fifteen percent in twenty six

0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:27.840
<v Speaker 1>according to the U S Census Bureau, and the e

0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.960
<v Speaker 1>commerce industry has doubled in the last five years to

0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.440
<v Speaker 1>be worth three hundred and fifty billion dollars annually. It's

0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.559
<v Speaker 1>a trend that predicts deliveries from online purchases will continue

0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:40.120
<v Speaker 1>to rise, and at least for now, you'd think this

0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.479
<v Speaker 1>probably means the use of more cardboard, but the amount

0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.480
<v Speaker 1>of cardboard shipped by US companies has actually decreased since

0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.800
<v Speaker 1>according to the Fiber Box Association or FBA, which is

0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.120
<v Speaker 1>the trade group for the cardboard industry or the corrugated

0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.600
<v Speaker 1>knockdown box material industry if you want to get fancy.

0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.720
<v Speaker 1>FBA member businesses are responsible for of wholesale industrial shipments

0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.400
<v Speaker 1>of new or recycled cardboard made in the United States.

0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.520
<v Speaker 1>It's important to note that imported cardboard comprises only about

0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.440
<v Speaker 1>three percent of the cardboard used in the US. How

0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.600
<v Speaker 1>can cardboard production possibly be decreasing In the midst of

0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.880
<v Speaker 1>this e commerce shipping boom, Manufacturers, including e commerce retailers,

0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.160
<v Speaker 1>are reducing packaging in an effort to reduce costs. Some

0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.240
<v Speaker 1>forgo cardboard for shrink rep like bottled water bound by

0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.440
<v Speaker 1>plastic film instead of cardboard. When cardboard is used, fewer

0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.360
<v Speaker 1>shippers are using the Russian dollar method of product transit,

0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.400
<v Speaker 1>in which a series of smaller boxes are inside of

0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.319
<v Speaker 1>a larger box, And because more items are being shipped

0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.319
<v Speaker 1>directly to consumers, fewer items are being boxed and shipped

0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.080
<v Speaker 1>to retail stores inside of larger boxes, which may help

0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.120
<v Speaker 1>explain the FBA stance that cardboard consumption is down or

0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.360
<v Speaker 1>at least holding steady as e commerce is up. The

0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.080
<v Speaker 1>steady and potentially increasing use of cardboard is a boon

0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.880
<v Speaker 1>for the cardboard manufacturing industry, but leaves many of us

0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.520
<v Speaker 1>grappling with the long term effects of an increasingly e

0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:00.400
<v Speaker 1>commerce driven economy. FBA president Dennis Coley old The New

0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:02.600
<v Speaker 1>York Times in twenty sixteen that the use of e

0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.920
<v Speaker 1>commerce boxes was growing faster than most other market segments

0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.079
<v Speaker 1>in the paper industry. This translates into more than thirty

0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.840
<v Speaker 1>five million tons. That's about thirty two million metric tons

0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.440
<v Speaker 1>of container board produced in the US each year. And

0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.240
<v Speaker 1>while some boxes are reused by the recipients, others are

0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.600
<v Speaker 1>destined for the waistbin. But wait, don't the majority of

0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.840
<v Speaker 1>boxes get recycled? Well, yes, but of the cardboard that

0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.000
<v Speaker 1>is discarded each year, ten percent ends up discarded in

0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.000
<v Speaker 1>the trash, and experts predict that number may continue to

0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.400
<v Speaker 1>grow because cardboard recycling has hit a plateau for nearly

0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.960
<v Speaker 1>three decades, the percentage of boxes that Americans recycle has increased.

0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.040
<v Speaker 1>For example, in only about fifty five percent of cardboard

0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:43.000
<v Speaker 1>in the US made its way into the recycling bin.

0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.800
<v Speaker 1>By even that number had risen to but it had

0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.919
<v Speaker 1>fallen to eight nine, a rate that held steady and,

0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.239
<v Speaker 1>as the Pew Research Center reports, has continued to remain flat.

0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.440
<v Speaker 1>This means that more than ten percent of consumer cardboard

0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:00.520
<v Speaker 1>is thrown away each year in the units dates to

0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.880
<v Speaker 1>the tune of about three hundred and fifty thousand tons,

0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.760
<v Speaker 1>which is about three hundred and eighteen thousand metric tons

0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:10.000
<v Speaker 1>of boxes in landfills. Making cardboard products with recycled materials

0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.600
<v Speaker 1>uses less energy and creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions. According

0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.160
<v Speaker 1>to the e p A inteen, the most recent year

0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.720
<v Speaker 1>for which data is available, eighty nine million tons or

0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.600
<v Speaker 1>about eighty one million metric tons of materials from cardboard

0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.200
<v Speaker 1>to plastics were recycled or composted. Doing so reduced greenhouse

0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.880
<v Speaker 1>gas emissions and a move equivalent to eliminating the annual

0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:32.280
<v Speaker 1>emissions of thirty eight million passenger cars. Unfortunately, cardboard can't

0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:36.240
<v Speaker 1>be recycled indefinitely. Every time it's remade, the fibers get shorter.

0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.240
<v Speaker 1>After five to seven recycling loops, the fibers become too

0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.520
<v Speaker 1>short to bond together into cardboard by adding new pulp

0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.839
<v Speaker 1>during the recycling process, any remaining usable fibers can still

0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.920
<v Speaker 1>be incorporated into a new product, paper, for instance. In

0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.200
<v Speaker 1>this way, a portion of every cardboard box lives on.

0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.360
<v Speaker 1>Even so, some experts say recycling alone won't be enough

0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.760
<v Speaker 1>to keep considerable amounts of cardboard out of the waste

0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:01.480
<v Speaker 1>stream and ultimately US landfills, and with economy increasingly fueled

0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:03.880
<v Speaker 1>by the immediacy of home delivery, we may have some

0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.680
<v Speaker 1>difficult decisions to make about consumerism. And then again, study

0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.560
<v Speaker 1>compared to the environmental impact of individual consumers who make

0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.520
<v Speaker 1>eco friendly choices with those of consumers who don't, and

0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.000
<v Speaker 1>found no meaningful difference between the two. Recycling cardboard still

0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.640
<v Speaker 1>requires resources, but markedly fewer than making new cardboard. It

0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.720
<v Speaker 1>takes less energy to make recycled cardboard than it does

0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:31.360
<v Speaker 1>to create new Today's episode was written by Laurie L.

0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.919
<v Speaker 1>Dove and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this

0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.800
<v Speaker 1>and lots of other environmental topics, visit our home planet,

0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:49.880
<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot com