A report reveals the numbers on the environmental unsustainability of online returns

Clothes resold, returned several times and often destined to remain in storage in the warehouses of large companies.All with journeys of thousands of kilometers per package and highly polluting:the world of online clothing sales, often characterized by free shipping and returns, therefore presents negligible costs for the buyer but enormous environmental damage due to waste of material and fuel.This is what emerges from new research led by the Investigative Unit of Greenpeace Italy.In just two months, the parcels analyzed crossed 13 European countries and China, traveling by truck, van, ship and plane.«Our investigation confirms the ease with which returns can be made in the fast fashion, almost always free for the customer, genres hidden and very relevant environmental impacts.While some European nations have already legislated to limit or avoid the use of destroying clothing items that are returned to the seller, the same cannot be said for the practice of facilitated returns, which encourages the compulsive purchase of disposable clothing, with serious consequences for the planet", commented Giuseppe Ungherese, head of the Greenpeace Italia Pollution campaign.

The investigation involved a total of 24 items of clothing from fast fashion – the category that includes all the garments that highly influence fashion but at the same time are designed and produced quickly and economically – from eight of the main companies in the sector: Amazon, ASOS, H&M, OVS, Shein, Temu, Zalando and Zara.In order to analyze the route of each package, discover the means of transport used and study the sellers' logistics chain, Greenpeace - with the help of the television broadcast Reports –  hid a GPS tracker in each dress before returning it.In 58 days, 98,945 km were traveled through 13 European countries and China, therefore corresponding to an average journey between delivery and return of 4,502 km per package.The shortest route was 1,147 km and the longest 10,297 km.The garments were sold and resold a total of 40 times (on average 1.7 times per dress) and returned 29 times.At the time of publication of the report, 14 out of 24 garments (58%) remained unsold and therefore left in the department stores of multinationals.As regards means of transport, the truck comes in first place with 54,222 km, followed by plane (34,123 km), van (8,290 km) and RORO ship (2,310 km).The overall path of each individual item can be viewed here.

Additionally, apparel product data was sent to the startups INDACO2 srl, which created an estimate of the impacts of transport based on international calculation standards.The was used “kilogram of CO2 equivalent”, or the unit of measurement that allows to weigh together emissions of different greenhouse gases with different climate-changing effects, thus allowing different gases to be compared with each other considering their contribution to the greenhouse effect.The average impact of the transport of orders and returns was equal to 2.78 kg CO2eq, with an oscillation that varied from 0.97 to 8.89 kg CO2eq depending on the route and to the different means of transport.For example, therefore, the return of a pair of jeans, which on average is characterized by a production impact of around 8.2 kg CO2eq, would add another 1.95 kg CO2eq and would therefore lead to a 24% increase in polluting emissions.

Finally, Greenpeace he recalled that the online clothing sector is among the most relevant in Italy and that young people, digital and fast-fashion are the three main drivers for the growth of the world's fashion market.However, yesOnly 3% of fashion is circular and just 1% of new clothes are produced by recycling used clothing.Furthermore, the organization underlined that between 2000 and 2015 alone, the production and consumption of textile products doubled and that every year, in the European Union, 5.8 million tonnes of clothes are thrown away, corresponding to approximately 12 kg per person.

[by Roberto Demaio]