{"id":253240,"date":"2021-07-27T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=541614"},"modified":"2021-07-27T10:45:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T10:45:00","slug":"whats-the-true-cost-of-shipping-all-your-junk-across-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/07\/27\/whats-the-true-cost-of-shipping-all-your-junk-across-the-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the true cost of shipping all your junk across the ocean?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Take a look around your home and you\u2019ll likely find plenty of goods that traveled by cargo ship to your doorstep. A set of IKEA plates made in China. A dresser full of pandemic-era loungewear, ordered on Target and made in Guatemala, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Tracing the impact on the environment from shipping any of these goods is incredibly tricky to do. The data \u2014 if you can find it \u2014 involves many companies, countries, and cargo carriers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such obscurity makes it hard to count the full cost of our consumption. But a recent report<\/a> helps unravel some of the mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two environmental groups, Pacific Environment<\/a> and Stand.earth<\/a>, worked with prominent maritime researchers to track goods imported by the 15 largest retail giants in the United States. They then quantified the greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants associated with those imports, usually ferried across the oceans on cargo ships running on dirty bunker fuel. In 2019, importing some 3.8 million shipping containers\u2019 worth of cargo generated as much carbon dioxide emissions as three coal-fired power plants. These shipments also produced as much smog-forming nitrous oxide as 27.4 million cars and trucks do in a year, according to the report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur report affirms that these retail giants\u2019 dirty ocean shipping is fueling the climate crisis,\u201d said Madeline Rose, climate campaign director for Pacific Environment and the study\u2019s lead author. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The study is the first to trace retailers\u2019 shipping-related emissions, and it used data from a separate, larger project to track the industry\u2019s emissions<\/a> that\u2019s set to launch in October. The findings are likely just a snapshot of the true environmental toll: Researchers said they could only verify emissions for one-fifth of shipments by the 15 retailers, owing to a lack of data and the companies\u2019 use of shell companies and franchises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The largest retail company in the United States, Walmart, was also the biggest polluter of the bunch. In 2019, Walmart imported enough goods to equal 893,000 shipping containers, resulting in some 3.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maritime shipping is a crucial part of the global economy. About 80 percent<\/a> of everything bought and sold travels on oil-burning, seafaring freighters at some point. All that shipping activity accounts for nearly 3 percent<\/a> of the world\u2019s annual greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a significant share of air pollution in coastal communities. The International Maritime Organization, which regulates the industry, has recently adopted measures to curb cargo ship emissions and reduce fuel consumption. But experts say stronger regulations<\/a> and bigger investments are needed to steer the industry away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, and wind-harnessing devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another way to spur companies to action is through accounting \u2014 figuring out how many emissions are produced by which activity, from which company, at which location. In the world of ocean freight, a shipment of cargo can pass through many hands and even owners between the time it leaves a factory and reaches a warehouse on the other side of the planet. The goal of the new research, Rose said, is \u201cto bring baseline environmental and public health accounting oversight to this incredibly murky issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n