A recent Reddit post by a grocery store employee sparked a heated debate on the platform.
In it, the user shared a picture of a grocery bag with one candy bar in it, captioning the photo, "I work at a supermarket. This is what our Uber orders look like."
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a major rise in the use of grocery delivery services, and the surge has accelerated the debate as to the environmental repercussions of it.
The Environmental Protection Agency reported that around 15% of people in the United States have tried online grocery shopping and that the number will likely grow as delivery services become more widely available.
While having groceries delivered can keep some cars off the road in larger cities where delivery drivers rely on bikes, these services can also encourage impulse purchases due to their sheer convenience, which can end up with a car driving miles to deliver, say, a single candy bar.
Grocery delivery services also eliminate the options of using reusable bags or refillable containers and avoiding unnecessary produce packaging, meaning you could end up with a lot of unwanted single-use plastic.
One of the most agreed-upon ways to keep it green is to get as much as you can in each order. By buying in bulk, whether shopping for yourself or via a delivery service, you can reduce the number of trips to and from the grocery store, thus cutting down on gasoline or electricity, depending on what your car runs on.
All this considered, the situation in the Reddit post is likely not part of the sustainable solution, and people in the comments couldn't agree more.
"That s***'s just wasteful- from the bag, to the gasoline, to the time of the people who have to do it," commented one user.
"Don't you have to pay for delivery?" wrote another. "I do not understand what goes through these peoples heads. I've sometimes walked for hours just to save money on getting the bus."
The original poster themselves even chimed in, saying, "I'm not even in the US. I'm from New Zealand where we are supposedly eco friendly."
Some companies are working to solve this problem and get shoppers on board by allowing them to use refillable containers and request what kind of bags and packaging are used, but there is still a long way to go.
Grocery delivery isn't going anywhere, but if done with sustainability in mind, its negative impact on the environment can be kept to a minimum.
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