Free Return and the Hidden Cost of Consumption
Americans spent $200 billion last holiday season, but not everything is a keeper. Many retail companies offer free returns, yet there's a significant disparity between people's perceptions of return logistics and the reality. In online stores, north of 30% of purchases are returned. The problem is that warehouses are built only to accommodate orders, not return logistics, which can add up to a 20% extension in labor and space. Many retail companies end up refunding returns and encourage customers to keep or even donate them. Unfortunately, 25% of returns are destroyed and others end up in landfills or with liquidator companies. But the numbers don’t add up. Annually, returns contribute to processing 5 billion pounds of waste in landfills, yet companies are hesitant to raise awareness about wasteful consumerism.
A 13-Year-Old Boy Beats AI at Tetris
A 13-year-old boy has beaten Tetris into submission, reaching an impressive 157 levels. Before him, only AIs have reached such a level. Programmers never envisioned this threshold, leading Tetris to glitch when he defeated the AI.
*Vocabularies; keeper, disparity, north of sth, the numbers don’t add up, liquidator, wasteful, consumerism, hesitant, to beat into submission, threshold, glitch
REFERENCE
Free Return and the Hidden Cost of ConsumptionAmericans spent $200 billion last holiday season, but not everything is a keeper. Many retail companies offer free returns, yet there's a significant disparity between people's perceptions of return logistics and the reality. In online stores, north of 30% of purchases are returned. The problem is that warehouses are built only to accommodate orders, not return logistics, which can add up to a 20% extension in labor and space. Many retail companies end up refunding returns and encourage customers to keep or even donate them. Unfortunately, 25% of returns are destroyed and others end up in landfills or with liquidator companies. But the numbers don’t add up. Annually, returns contribute to processing 5 billion pounds of waste in landfills, yet companies are hesitant to raise awareness about wasteful consumerism.
A 13-Year-Old Boy Beats AI at Tetris
A 13-year-old boy has beaten Tetris into submission, reaching an impressive 157 levels. Before him, only AIs have reached such a level. Programmers never envisioned this threshold, leading Tetris to glitch when he defeated the AI.
*Vocabularies; keeper, disparity, north of sth, the numbers don’t add up, liquidator, wasteful, consumerism, hesitant, to beat into submission, threshold, glitch
REFERENCE
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