The Damaging Costs Of Black Friday

How you can shop more sustainably this year

With black Friday and cyber Monday just around the corner, businesses and consumers are already preparing for the biggest shopping event worldwide.

The sheer volume of money that is spent online and in-store during the black Friday sales and cyber Monday sales is astronomical, with so many people ready to grab a bargain as quickly as possible. 

So, if black Friday is all about grabbing a quick bargain, you might be wondering how this could possibly be a bad thing when the benefits for consumers are so obvious. Well, like a lot of things, human need for excessive materialistic things comes at a damaging and crippling cost to the environment.

How Do Black Friday and Cyber Monday Affect The Environment?

By now, you must be wondering, how exactly does my grabbing a great bargain actually affect the environment? Well, unfortunately, there are actually a lot of factors that can come to fruition when looking at the environmental impact of Black Friday. 

For example, one of the biggest concerns is glaringly apparent: Bargains generally convince consumers to partake in impulse purchases - often buying things they otherwise wouldn’t for the simple reason of it being a great bargain! Impulse buying, and specifically, excessive impulse buying, can affect the environment in the following ways: 

• Packaging! Plastic and paper packaging that often ends up in recycling bins is, of course, one of the most significant factors. Of course, the packaging is often something we can't avoid but consider the volume of people who impulse buy on black friday and consider the volume of packaging used on these purchases. Kind of scary, right? 

• Waste. Impulse buying often leads to regrets which often leads to - you guessed it - waste. The thrill of finding a great bargain sets off all kinds of dopamine hits in our brains, but unfortunately, many people end up buying things they have no use for, which ultimately end up in the waste bin. 

This isn’t to say that shopping on Black Friday is a no-go or that you shouldn’t partake in finding a great bargain - with the rising cost of living worldwide, sales are more important than ever.

However, there are some eco-conscious ways you can shop this black Friday that help lower the environmental impact black Friday has.

Continue reading to discover some easy steps you can put into place to shop more sustainably this black Friday! 

Choose Products With A Local Supply Chain

Unfortunately, Australia imports a vast majority of its products from overseas, primarily due to the cheaper labour costs in other countries.

Many people dont realise how this can have an environmental impact as it is something we are so used to seeing.

However, to put it into perspective: Australia actually imports around 30 million tonnes more greenhouse gases than it exports - yikes! 

Importing the number of products that Australia does can have various impacts on our environment, such as: 

• Increased water pollution due to fuel use and accidental spills. 
• Increased water pollution can lead to a decline in biodviversity. 
• Long-term damage to ecosystems due to food chain breakdowns. 
• Hugely increase greenhouse