The Environmental Impact of Returns

In recent years, offering easy returns has become the norm for many online retailers, but this ‘easy’ solution comes at a great cost to the environment. 

In the fashion industry, returns are at the higher than most other e-commerce industries, for example, at online fashion giant Zalando, 50% of sales are returned. Meaning the carbon footprint from the postage of the garment doubles. The sustainable returns company Optoro in their 2019 report, estimated that returns generate 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide going straight into the atmosphere. 

But it’s not just the shipping we need to take into account, as while many companies repackage and resell returns, the harsh reality is that 50% of the return items go straight to landfill and only 54% of all packaging gets recycled. Resulting in an estimated five billion pounds of returned products and packaging ending up in landfills each year.

Most of these discarded items are sent to deserts around the world in places such as Ghana and Chile. Many retailers are also known to burn, shred, and otherwise destroy returned items, as well as unsold garments, to make sure the value of their brands stay high with exclusivity.

At Alterist, as our mission is to reduce textile waste, therefore, we want to minimise returns at all costs. We would prefer to focus on helping you find the right product rather than focusing on cheap and easy returns. For this reason, it is entirely up to the seller if they choose to provide returns or not, and we support them in their decision.

The good news is that we have taken measures to minimise returns in the first place!

• All designers are asked to provide accurate measurements of their garments
• All designers are asked to provide multiple images of their garments, showcasing angles
• You can contact designers via the link on their profile to ask for more information
• We provide an average size guide where you can get an idea of what size you might be.

At Alterist, we want to make shopping through a more sustainable lens a possibility where you can participate in the world of fashion without hurting the planet.