The main contributing factor Second-hand trade has towards saving the environment, is preventing new products from being produced. This means minimizing use of chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions, use of water and natural resources and other elements in the production chain that affect the environment negatively. This report explains how second-hand trade contributes to minimizing the use of materials and to saving greenhouse gas emissions from production and waste management.
The result: 0.8 million tonnes saved greenhouse gases and 122,000 tonnes of steel
This report indicates that Swedes are potentially saving a total of 0.8 million tonnes greenhouse gases by shopping second-hand on Blocket, based on Blocket sales statistics in 2017. The climate benefit is huge and can be compared to all traffic standing still in Stockholm for one year. In the calculations we have also found out that the secondhand trade saves 122,000 tonnes of steel, which is the amount of steel needed to build a railway from Malmö to Kiruna.
The amount of material and greenhouse gas emissions from a product is linked to the size and technical complexity of the product. In short, this is due to the fact that large quantities of physical materials demand huge amount of energy for extraction and production. Complex products with many components also generate many manufacturing processes that consume a lot of energy. The categories saving most greenhouse gas emissions and material demonstrate this. Prolonging the life length of large and complex products such as cars, caravans and furniture saves the most!
|Result: Potentially saved carbon dioxide emissions||(tons CO2 equivilets)|
|Caravans & motor homes||128,369|
|Clothes and shoes||1,893|
|Phones and gadgets||2,249|
|Business travel||- 61|
|Power usage||- 40|
|Transports connected to sales||- 20,726|