Saving Christmas: Why Retail Returns Are Harming Our Planet
The festive season is once more just a wassail away, and we’re all preparing to get spruced up one more time. For many of us, Christmas is a time for family, and reflection on the year just gone and anticipation of the year to come.
It’s also a time for rampant consumerism.
And with COP26 upon us, the spotlight once more will be on retail’s responsibility towards the planet and climate change. But is that really fair? After all, it’s us who buy the presents which will be discarded like a plate of cold turkey as soon as everyone’s back is turned.
It’s a peculiarly British thing, that sense of entitlement; and of course, after the near two years of purgatory we’ve all endured, the feeling this year will be stronger than ever.
Except that this year, all that Christmas cheer could be dashed by the harsh realities of the world in which we now live. No-one to pluck our turkeys, most of our toys stuck at Felixstowe, we’re even running short of Harry Potter wands.
And in the rush to make sure that our children are bribed with the latest Xbox, by the time Christmas comes around, COP26 will be about as far from most people’s minds as Greta Thunberg dancing to Rick Astley.
Let’s face it, in the run up to Christmas we won’t have time for any of that. We’ll be too busy buying stuff which we don’t need, whilst under the influence, safe in the knowledge that if we do accidently buy a dozen table top pizza ovens, we can return eleven of them.
Because, when we’re in our own bubble, the outside world really doesn’t matter, as long as it doesn’t materially affect us. We’ll go on consuming and heating our homes in winter to the point where we need to wear shorts and a T-shirt, because we can.
Because we’ve earnt it, right? And no one’s going to tell us what to do, much less the government. We need to protect our right to free speech and our right to our own civil liberties, which means we are free to do what the hell we like. And no-one is going to take that away.
Except of course, that’s nonsense.
Now, I don’t know about you but as an example, never, ever have I heard anyone complain about the fact that we are required, in fact mandated to drive on the left in the UK. It’s a fact. And everyone abides by it, because we know that venturing over to the other side of the road will almost certainly have fairly unpredictable consequences.
But when it comes to wanting more stuff, it seems as if it’s our God given right to order with impunity, checkout with abandon, secure in the knowledge that once we’ve shared our Insta story wearing our ephemeral outfit, we can simply summon yet another white van to come and collect it and take it back from whence it came. Most likely to end up either being incinerated or dumped in the nearest landfill.
The problem of returns is an existential threat to retail that it is turning a blind eye to.
It’s a complex issue, not helped by the fact that in many cases, serial returners are a retailer’s best customers; so why wouldn’t they encourage them to continue the practice? But ultimately, it’s not sustainable, in the very real sense of the word.
COP26 is likely to encourage us to drive electric cars, replace our gas boilers and fly less often. But if there’s one simple, easy way to at least begin to make a dent in emissions, it’s to regulate retail returns.
