Gift the planet this Christmas
Shop Local and support both your economy and planet.
When shopping online it’s so easy to just find a product and pay for it without even a thought of how it makes its way to your doorstep. This year, it’s time to think about it. Sadly a large proportion of online products travel miles to get to you. Just one small parcel might travel thousands of miles when the same product or a very similar one could actually be available within a short distance from where you are sitting right now. Local businesses on ShopAppy.com are trying to tackle this problem head on. They are helping to ensure you can shop greener this Christmas and reduce the miles travelled and the packaging that comes from more typical online shopping. So this year, think of how changes to shopping local might well be your own small gift to our planet this Christmas.
With the pandemic and many store closures due to lockdown, this year has pushed many people to shop online - £1 in ever £3 is now being spent online according to the ONS. This means more delivery vans on the road and increasing views of cardboard boxes and plastic packaging in our bins
It has been *reported that on average 150-200 parcels per delivery driver, per day are delivered and some drivers end up driving over 100mph to be able to get the items to people in the allocated time allowance. All this adds to the toxic gasses being emitted into the atmosphere and uses irreplaceable fossil fuels. When you shop local, you not only help improve air quality, but also reduce local traffic congestion.
Over 10 millions of us live less than 200 metres from a local high street. Simply by using these shops you help the planet, your area and the people setting up their businesses near you.
Your local high street shops and markets offer a variety of unique, personalised items which make special gifts, handcrafted or local sourced items as well as fresh produce. Rather than lots of small parcels being driven across the world, these items arrive in fewer deliveries and mean that they are usually less packaged and in the case of fresh produce, taste a lot better too!
The biggest problem aside from the air pollution, is the packaging that online ordering creates. Whether it’s cardboard, paper or plastic it is often unnecessary. Many of us have received parcels before in a huge box with extra scrunched up paper inside or polystyrene beads, only for the item itself to be in a box in its own protective packaging!
Many high street shops and markets now offer an eco-friendlier alternative to this. And if you choose to use click and collect – you get ease and convenience at a much smaller cost on our environment.
We all need to play our part in reducing air pollution, consuming less fossil fuel and reducing plastic and waste. This Christmas we can all do our little bit to contribute and it will go a long way. So save yourself and your waste collectors some hassle and think local first – as well as saving local businesses in what has been the most challenging times in our history, it will also help you do your bit to save the planet.
Let’s give a little gift to the planet this Christmas and shop local.
*Ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37912858
