How Much Cardboard Does Online Shipping Use?

Online shipping is highly convenient, and it’s changing the way we use cardboard — but not necessarily for the worse. Learn why in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff. From how Stuff Works. Hey there,
brain Stuff, Lauren vocal bomb here. From groceries to gadgets.
The home delivery of goods is depositing cardboard boxes on
doorsteps across America, and we've collectively fallen in love with
the convenience of it all. But what about the consequences
of all that packing material. The number of e commerce

(00:22):
transactions increased by more than fifteen percent in twenty six
according to the U S Census Bureau, and the e
commerce industry has doubled in the last five years to
be worth three hundred and fifty billion dollars annually. It's
a trend that predicts deliveries from online purchases will continue
to rise, and at least for now, you'd think this
probably means the use of more cardboard, but the amount

(00:43):
of cardboard shipped by US companies has actually decreased since
according to the Fiber Box Association or FBA, which is
the trade group for the cardboard industry or the corrugated
knockdown box material industry if you want to get fancy.
FBA member businesses are responsible for of wholesale industrial shipments
of new or recycled cardboard made in the United States.

(01:05):
It's important to note that imported cardboard comprises only about
three percent of the cardboard used in the US. How
can cardboard production possibly be decreasing In the midst of
this e commerce shipping boom, Manufacturers, including e commerce retailers,
are reducing packaging in an effort to reduce costs. Some
forgo cardboard for shrink rep like bottled water bound by
plastic film instead of cardboard. When cardboard is used, fewer

(01:28):
shippers are using the Russian dollar method of product transit,
in which a series of smaller boxes are inside of
a larger box, And because more items are being shipped
directly to consumers, fewer items are being boxed and shipped
to retail stores inside of larger boxes, which may help
explain the FBA stance that cardboard consumption is down or
at least holding steady as e commerce is up. The
steady and potentially increasing use of cardboard is a boon

(01:51):
for the cardboard manufacturing industry, but leaves many of us
grappling with the long term effects of an increasingly e
commerce driven economy. FBA president Dennis Coley old The New
York Times in twenty sixteen that the use of e
commerce boxes was growing faster than most other market segments
in the paper industry. This translates into more than thirty
five million tons. That's about thirty two million metric tons

(02:11):
of container board produced in the US each year. And
while some boxes are reused by the recipients, others are
destined for the waistbin. But wait, don't the majority of
boxes get recycled? Well, yes, but of the cardboard that
is discarded each year, ten percent ends up discarded in
the trash, and experts predict that number may continue to
grow because cardboard recycling has hit a plateau for nearly

(02:33):
three decades, the percentage of boxes that Americans recycle has increased.
For example, in only about fifty five percent of cardboard
in the US made its way into the recycling bin.
By even that number had risen to but it had
fallen to eight nine, a rate that held steady and,
as the Pew Research Center reports, has continued to remain flat.

(02:55):
This means that more than ten percent of consumer cardboard
is thrown away each year in the units dates to
the tune of about three hundred and fifty thousand tons,
which is about three hundred and eighteen thousand metric tons
of boxes in landfills. Making cardboard products with recycled materials
uses less energy and creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions. According
to the e p A inteen, the most recent year

(03:16):
for which data is available, eighty nine million tons or
about eighty one million metric tons of materials from cardboard
to plastics were recycled or composted. Doing so reduced greenhouse
gas emissions and a move equivalent to eliminating the annual
emissions of thirty eight million passenger cars. Unfortunately, cardboard can't
be recycled indefinitely. Every time it's remade, the fibers get shorter.

(03:36):
After five to seven recycling loops, the fibers become too
short to bond together into cardboard by adding new pulp
during the recycling process, any remaining usable fibers can still
be incorporated into a new product, paper, for instance. In
this way, a portion of every cardboard box lives on.
Even so, some experts say recycling alone won't be enough
to keep considerable amounts of cardboard out of the waste

(03:56):
stream and ultimately US landfills, and with economy increasingly fueled
by the immediacy of home delivery, we may have some
difficult decisions to make about consumerism. And then again, study
compared to the environmental impact of individual consumers who make
eco friendly choices with those of consumers who don't, and
found no meaningful difference between the two. Recycling cardboard still

(04:17):
requires resources, but markedly fewer than making new cardboard. It
takes less energy to make recycled cardboard than it does
to create new Today's episode was written by Laurie L.
Dove and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this
and lots of other environmental topics, visit our home planet,
how stuff works dot com