Who doesn’t love online shopping? The cheaper, the faster, the better? Sign me up! Why walk five minutes when you can move your finger five centimetres and have it delivered in five days? And the prices! Move past Amazon and Argos—the new cool kids were in town. Temu and Shein ruled my high school shopping life.
I mean, I knew it was bad for the environment… or something. But everyone does it. And billionaires were flying around in private jets—no one would notice a handful of packages.
Anyway, I n̶e̶e̶d̶?̶…want a new blender! Amazon—same-day delivery, of course. It arrived at my doorstep in less than 24 hours. Way less than 24 hours later, I realised it was junk. I returned it, and within another 24 hours, I’d already forgotten about the blender I had been so excited about just 24 hours earlier.
A few days later, I was doom-scrolling and came across a video exposé on Amazon returns. I’d always wondered—what actually happens when you return a package? Who fixes it? Who deals with all that paperwork?
Turns out, no one.
Trashed? That can’t be right. I mean, yeah, my blender was cheap—but it wasn’t broken. Straight to a landfill? No stop at go, just dumped? I was in disbelief.
Just before the end of the video, the camera pans to a box of returned items. In that box, beneath the piles of unwanted, broken, and misordered products, was a blender.
My blender? Surely not. What are the odds?… But it could have been.
This wasn’t just an incomprehensible CO₂ statistic or a distant countdown to the planet’s expiration date. It was my blender. I saw it. I touched it. And now it was headed straight to a landfill. My fingerprints, still on it—the evidence of my crime.
Suddenly, the damage was visible. Tangible. A physical reminder—like being handed the knife I’d used to stab my beloved planet in the heart.
They try to make you not care about the environment. To believe your actions are too small to matter.
But we have to care.
Every little choice does help.
You might not single-handedly solve global warming, but you can save a blender from a landfill.
Sustainable choices made every day lead to real, tangible, physical change. Change you can see, Change you can touch.
As I prepare to pack for my study abroad trip, the urge to order the cutest jackets online to beat the Canadian cold is real. But I hold back. As I stuff my second, probably third-hand—jacket into my sewn-together luggage, I’m reminded that little changes matter. Like thrifting, donating instead of returning, following the UN’s sustainability goals, walking not driving, and choosing direct flights instead of layovers. And staying away from online shopping as much as possible.
Wherever you are or wherever you are going, you can save a blender.
While I’ll never find my blender, I can stop another one from joining it.
Sustainable shopping links and tricks
https://sdgs.un.org/goals
https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/charity-shops
https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop/donating-goods
https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/getclimateready/sustainable-travel
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/donate-to-our-shops/
