eBay - The Great Recycler
Have you ever realized that eBay is a massive recycling center?
As I have said repeatedly, you just need to look at things with new eyes to see some things.
Each and every year, eBay keeps billions of items out of landfills. As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Items that would have been dumped are now sold on eBay. Items that may not have not been purchased at garage sales, estate sales, flea markets, etc, are now being snapped up with resale in mind.
Due to the myriad of changes that are seen as unfriendly to smaller sellers, eBay itself has also spawned an ever-growing number of smaller auction sites.
As the future of the economy remains uncertain, on-line auction sales at deep discounts will certainly continue to grow. While people are being more careful about their spending, there will always be items that they need to purchase, but more importantly, items they want and billions of people look to eBay and other on-line auction sites to fill that need.
The picture is not all environmentally rosy, however. While items are being kept out of the waste stream, every item sold on eBay requires delivery and packaging. Delivery of millions of dollars of individual items means increased emissions from cars, trucks and planes. Packaging on millions of individual products means an increase in the use of raw materials and in the amuont of packaging in landfills.
How much of an effect does this have? Well, it's pretty hard to calculate. Items purchased in retail stores are also delivered. Consumers still need to drive their own vehicles to the store to purchase them.
Items purchased in retail stores still require packaging, but it is usually done more efficiently.
The actual numbers will probably never be determined, but every alternate approach to an environmental issue creates it's own set of issues. This is an absolute and inescapable fact.
Perhaps as alternatives to fossil fuels are found and more widely used, the impact of recycling via eBay will become even more positive. If we ever achieve bioplastics and clean, sustainable fuels, eBay could indeed go down in history as the greatest recycler of all time.
