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Your brand new returns end up in landfill You’ve ordered a new pair of shoes online. They arrive; you rush to the front door and cradle the box as you lift off the lid. You un-tie the laces, guide them toward your feet and… bummer, they don’t fit. So, back in the box they go and an hour later you drop them at the local collections store. It’s disappointing, but hey, the shoes have never been worn and they’ll be making their way to a new home soon. Right? Wrong. 你在網(wǎng)上買了一雙新鞋。鞋子送到，你沖到門口，小心翼翼地抱回鞋盒，打開蓋子，解開鞋帶，上腳試穿。慘了，鞋子不合腳。于是你又把鞋放回盒子里，一小時(shí)后，拿給了本地一家二手店。雖然這很令人失望， 但這雙鞋從來沒穿過，應(yīng)該很快就有新買家了。是這樣吧？并非如此。 So what does happen to our apparel when we order online and then return the items? The reality is that much of it simply ends up in landfill. That is, once its been shipped all over the country, or even the globe, a few times. 那么，被我們退貨的網(wǎng)購(gòu)衣服最后都去哪兒了呢？事實(shí)上，大部分都被當(dāng)作垃圾填埋了。在填埋前，這些商品還曾在全國(guó)各地，甚至是全世界運(yùn)送了好幾次。 Each year in the US alone, customers return approximately 3.5 billion products, of which only 20% are actually defective according to Optoro, a company which specialises in returns logistics. Optoro是一家專門從事退貨物流的公司，公司表示，僅在美國(guó)每年就有大約35億件商品被退回，其中只有20%是殘次品。 Sarah Needham from the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at University of the Arts London says the flow of goods to customers and back to retailers is flawed both from an economic and environmental perspective. 倫敦藝術(shù)大學(xué)可持續(xù)時(shí)裝中心的尼德漢姆（Sarah Needham）表示，無論是從經(jīng)濟(jì)還是環(huán)境的角度來看，消費(fèi)者和零售商間的物流都有問題。 “We know that many of the products that are returned end up in landfill before we even use them which only adds to the vast amounts of used items already ending up in landfill... These products use precious resources which are becoming scarce and we are throwing them away unnecessarily,” says Needham. “很多被退回的商品還沒用過就被填埋了，本已堆積如山的廢物垃圾雪上加霜。這些商品都是用寶貴的資源制成的，這些資源越來越稀缺，但我們卻扔掉了。”尼德漢姆說。 It turns out that returns not only create a giant carbon footprint, but a real headache for companies. That new pair of shoes you sent back, with the open box and the untied laces, needs to be handled differently to, say, a t-shirt with a rip in it. Many companies simply don’t have the technology in place to handle these nuances in returned goods, so it is often most profitable for them to sell them cheaply to discounters via a web of shipping, driving and flying them around the globe, or to simply truck them to the dump. 事實(shí)證明，退貨不僅會(huì)大大增加碳排放，還讓企業(yè)頭疼不已。你寄回的那雙新鞋，鞋盒開過，鞋帶是散的，跟其他被退還的商品，譬如破掉的T恤相比，處理方法是不同的。許多公司并沒有區(qū)別對(duì)待退貨商品的技術(shù)，所以往往會(huì)選擇利潤(rùn)最高的方式處理——通過海運(yùn)、陸運(yùn)和空運(yùn)將商品運(yùn)送到全球各地的折扣店低價(jià)出售，或者干脆一卡車?yán)嚼鴪?chǎng)。 Optoro estimates that 5 billion pounds of waste is generated through returns each year, contributing 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The returns system is horrendously inefficient according to Carly Llewellyn, Senior Director of Marketing at Optoro: “Historically the way retailers have handled returns is they get a bunch of items back to a store or warehouse, usually they’ll sit for several months because they don’t have tech to know what to do with them, eventually they’ll go to a wholesaler or liquidator, through all these middle men to try and resell them. It’s bad for environment - as items are shipped around the country so much - and bad for retailers who make hardly any money.” 據(jù)Optoro估計(jì)，退貨每年產(chǎn)生50億磅垃圾，向大氣中排放1500萬噸二氧化碳。該公司的高級(jí)營(yíng)銷總監(jiān)盧埃林（Carly Llewellyn）表示退貨系統(tǒng)的效率低得可怕。她說：“零售商通常會(huì)把退貨商品堆放在商店庫房或者倉庫里，一放就是幾個(gè)月，因?yàn)楦静恢廊绾翁幚?。最終，這些商品會(huì)被賣給批發(fā)商或清算人這些中間商來轉(zhuǎn)售。被運(yùn)往全國(guó)各地的商品數(shù)量多如牛毛，不僅會(huì)破壞環(huán)境，對(duì)零售商也不是什么好事，因?yàn)閹缀踬嵅坏藉X?！?/p> Clothes and shoes already go through so many environmentally harmful processes, from making the fabric (often out of fossil fuels) to dyeing it using toxic chemicals. Mass manufacturing in factories pumps carbon emissions into the air, and clothes are then shipped across the globe multiple times, only to ultimately end up in a pile on a landfill site because they couldn’t easily be routed to a new home. 衣服和鞋子的制造過程已經(jīng)對(duì)環(huán)境造成了嚴(yán)重破壞——制作布料要用化石燃料，染色會(huì)使用有毒的化學(xué)試劑，工廠大規(guī)模生產(chǎn)時(shí)向空氣中排放二氧化碳，衣物又在全世界運(yùn)來運(yùn)去?？傻筋^來，因?yàn)橥素浬唐泛茈y找到新買家，最后只能被當(dāng)成垃圾填埋掉。 It’s an issue we don’t tend to hear much about. We know that sourcing fashion items like cotton, leather and wool can cause habitat degradation, and that manufacturing processes cause climate change and pollute our oceans (17-20% of all industrial water pollution is caused by the dyeing of textiles in manufacturing, according to a 2016 report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature). But what about the rest of the fashion supply chain? 這是一個(gè)我們鮮有耳聞的問題。我們知道購(gòu)買棉、皮革和羊毛制品等時(shí)尚品會(huì)導(dǎo)致動(dòng)植物棲息地退化，產(chǎn)品的制造過程會(huì)導(dǎo)致氣候變化和海洋污染（國(guó)際自然保護(hù)聯(lián)盟2016年的一份報(bào)告指出，17% - 20%的工業(yè)用水污染是因?yàn)榧徔椘酚∪荆?。那么時(shí)尚供應(yīng)鏈的其他環(huán)節(jié)呢？ Optoro believes it has a viable solution. Its software helps retailers and manufacturers resell unsold and excess items more easily. They offer a multitude of options for retailers, including a website to re-sell their goods, called Blinq, as well as helping with re-routing items to donation, store shelves, Amazon or eBay. They estimate their work helps reduce landfill waste by 70%. Optoro宣稱找到了解決辦法。該公司設(shè)計(jì)了一款軟件，可以幫助零售商和制造商更容易二次銷售沒賣出去或是多余的商品。他們還為零售商提供了多種選擇，比如可以在一個(gè)名為Blinq的網(wǎng)站上重新銷售商品，也可以將退回的商品捐贈(zèng)出去，或者賣給商店、亞馬遜（Amazon）或易趣（eBay）。公司估計(jì)這些措施能減少70%的堆填垃圾。 “Our tech uses a lot of different data sources to figure out exactly what to do with each different item. For example a pair of shoes that have only been taken out of the box, and are still in perfect condition, we will put straight on the website,” says Llewellyn. “我們的技術(shù)采用了很多不同的數(shù)據(jù)源，能準(zhǔn)確找出不同商品的處理方法。例如，一雙只是從盒里拿出來過但沒有任何問題的鞋子，我們會(huì)直接放在網(wǎng)站上?！北R埃林說。 Co-founders Tobin Moore and Adam Vitarello came up with the idea 11 years ago when they were working to help individuals resell one-off items on eBay from a store in their garage. 公司的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人摩爾（Tobin Moore）和維塔雷洛（Adam Vitarello ）11年前想出了這個(gè)點(diǎn)子，當(dāng)時(shí)他們?cè)谧约旱能噹炖?，幫一家商店的顧客在易趣網(wǎng)上轉(zhuǎn)售所購(gòu)買的一次性商品。 “They had a lot of retail stores come to them and say, ‘We have all these returned shoes from last season that are excess and we don’t know what to do with them, can you help us resell them,’” says Llewellyn. The pair realised if they started doing the same but for big retailers they could tap into a much bigger market, and so they started building the Optoro software. 盧埃林說：“有很多零售商店找上門說，‘上一季的鞋子有好多退貨，我們不知道該怎么處理，你能幫我們轉(zhuǎn)賣嗎?’”兩人意識(shí)到，如果為大型零售商提供同樣的服務(wù)，市場(chǎng)將會(huì)廣闊得多，因此他們開始開發(fā)Optoro軟件。 Needham is encouraged to see organisations recognise the issue of waste from returns and offer solutions to reduce the flow of clothing and footware to landfill and preserve the energy and resources that go into producing these items. 尼德漢姆欣喜地看到，很多機(jī)構(gòu)認(rèn)識(shí)到了退貨產(chǎn)生垃圾的問題，并提供解決方案，減少流入垃圾場(chǎng)的衣物和鞋襪數(shù)量，節(jié)約生產(chǎn)這些物品所需的能源和資源。 Yet, despite the obvious environmental issues, the fast fashion business is still rapidly expanding. A 2016 report by Greenpeace shows that, “Clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014…The average person buys 60 per cent more items of clothing every year”. And, with a booming world population estimated to reach 9 billion people by 2050, solutions that ensure our returns can be reused or recycled are going to be vital. 然而，盡管存在明顯的環(huán)境問題，快銷時(shí)尚行業(yè)仍在迅速擴(kuò)張。綠色和平組織2016年的一份報(bào)告顯示，“2000年至2014年，全世界服裝產(chǎn)量翻了一番……平均每人每年衣服的購(gòu)買量增加了60%。”到2050年，世界人口預(yù)計(jì)將暴增到90億，確保退貨被再次使用或回收利用的解決方案將至關(guān)重要。 Ann Starodaj, Senior Director of Sustainability at Optoro, says that while consumer habits might still be harmful, creating a profitable and environmentally friendly fashion model from start to finish is the way forward: “I don’t think people are going to stop buying stuff, but creating a business model where you’re making it easier for them to make sustainable choices is the money shot,” she says. Optoro公司可持續(xù)部門的高級(jí)主管斯塔羅達(dá)（Ann Starodaj）表示，盡管消費(fèi)者的習(xí)慣可能仍然對(duì)環(huán)境有害，但打造一個(gè)從頭到尾都既盈利又環(huán)保的時(shí)裝行業(yè)模式才是正確的方向?！拔艺J(rèn)為人們并不會(huì)停止購(gòu)買，創(chuàng)造一種商業(yè)模式讓消費(fèi)者做出更環(huán)保的選擇才是關(guān)鍵?！?/p> |
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