Internet Purchasing

Costs

Charting the total environmental cost of Internet purchasing can be difficult. First, there are the heavy-metal mining and manufacturing costs of the involved computers and support equipment. Then, power plants must provide electricity to operate those devices. Data centers must be constructed and air conditioned to keep the Website equipment running smoothly, and switching stations must be added to the Internet to support the increased amount of commercial traffic. One could even go as far as to chart the damage to the environment caused by the laying of hundreds of thousands of miles of cable to carry the data around the world. However, all these damages pale in comparison to the environmental harm that is caused once the purchasing has been completed. The products themselves must be stored and shipped, requiring warehouses to be lit and packages to be routed across the country before they can be delivered to the doorstep. However, all of those costs are shared with other forms of purchasing as well.

Benefits

The environmental benefits are made evident when the damages of purchasing online are compared with those of purchasing by some other means, such as retail. Such activity involves the same amount of computer and Internet use, as retail stores purchase from their suppliers, as well as a similar degree of housing and shipping of the products. On top of that, however, the shops must also be lit and air conditioned. Then one must take into account the additional use of fuel for the consumer to drive from their home to the store. Because the extra environmental costs in retail shopping are primarily the fault of the consumer driving to and from the store, Internet purchasing becomes a very appealing alternative to people who care about their impact on the environment but do not have the time or the means to walk or make use of public transportation to do their shopping.

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