Jane Bickerstaff Home delivery


In her first column for Packaging Gazette, Jane Bickerstaff, director of INCPEN, looks at whether home delivery is a more or less sustainable option


For the past 40 years we have ordered a few goods over the phone, usually after choosing them from a printed catalogue. Ordering via the Internet – having chosen from online listings – is more recent but already well -established for a vast range of goods, from groceries and wine to books, plants and clothing. Some items, such as music DVDs and films, are even delivered as downloads direct from the Internet, but most are physically delivered to our homes by the retailer or a third party.


It’s a shopping


revolution, and one that consumers seem to love, given the rapid expansion of online ordering. But as well as the benefits of consumer convenience, are there any hidden snags?


A


s a research body, INCPEN’s main role is to consider the environmental impact of getting goods to consumers in the most environmentally and resource efficient way. We are proposing to research the issues around home


delivery, but are still at the early stage of asking lots of questions and identifying the issues. We would love to hear the views of readers. What are the implications of this dramatic increase in goods delivered direct to our homes? Are planned delivery routes more fuel efficient than individual shopping trips by consumers? Are more, or fewer, items damaged in transit compared to being stowed in the boot of the car? Should packaging be strengthened to cope with the additional handling involved in goods being shipped from manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer to a central delivery hub and then on to the local distribution point before reaching the home address? Do retailers who manage their own home delivery have lower damage rates than those who use third party delivery agents? Does the grocery sector inevitably impose greater challenges because of the perishable nature of some foods? But is that balanced out by the typically shorter journeys or weekly groceries travel?


Of course, shoppers cannot carry large items such as white goods or furniture, and these have


main role is to consider the environmental impact of getting goods to consumers in the most environmentally and resource efficient way.


“As a research body, INCPEN’s


always been delivered direct, with some far-sighted retailers offering to take away the empty packaging and even the old sofa or cooker. This service is welcomed by householders, so is valuable in marketing terms, and also helps retailers to increase packaging recycling rates. But it has also pushed them into the new area of disposing of fridges, cookers, sofas and mattresses. How does that stack up in resource efficiency terms? Smaller items such as wine or electrical equipment, which are in theory suitable for taking home by car, are increasingly being delivered direct to home. Some commentators are suggesting that offers the opportunity to replace costly, colourfully-printed sales packaging on goods which, as well as protecting the product, acts as a marketing tool on the retail shelf with something more utilitarian. But having separate packaging lines for goods dependent on their sales route would surely be too limiting, as well as requiring separate lines, or batch processing. There have been complaints from some recipients of home-delivered groceries that too many thin plastic carrier bags are used, some of which hold only one or two items. This is down to the way in which customer orders are currently picked from the shelves and collated by the supermarket, and may be changed as they streamline their systems – but given the Environment Agency’s new report on the impacts of different types of carrier bags, maybe consumers will now appreciate that the regular thin bags are the most environmentally


”


efficient carrier bags especially if they are reused as bin liners and for other purposes. There have also been complaints that small items come in


unnecessarily large outer boxes. This may be down to retailers who supply a large range of goods, and use a stock of standard sized boxes to deliver varying combinations of them. Or it may be because automated filling lines are set up to use certain sized boxes, and only when they are replaced by new, ideally adjustable, filling lines are introduced can this be adjusted. It seems healthy to have the debate now, at a relatively early stage in home delivery systems. Do join the debate and share your views. ■


Jane Bickerstaff - Jane has been Director of INCPEN since 2000 and its Technical Director since 1993. She trained as a biochemist and has over 25 years experience working on packaging and environmental issues. She has worked for Cable and Wireless, Unilever and spent 10 years as an Environmental Advisor with Metal Box (now Crown Europe).


Packaging Gazette 15


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