Since the beginning of the pandemic, food delivery companies have been booming. There’s nothing wrong with that. In a shifting economy there are always losers, but also winners. As we go to restaurants less frequently, customers are increasingly turning to delivery as an option, and restaurants and diners are adapting to this demand.
What is the ecological footprint of food delivery?
Before the pandemic, everything revolved around climate protection. Now this concern seems to have faded somewhat, even though our own troubles don’t lessen the ecosystem’s problems. Pandemic or not, we tend to be “environmentally conscious” only in certain small aspects of our decisions, while overlooking the bigger picture of real impacts. In other words: we might buy organic products with tears of joy in our eyes, but we often forget how much of a footprint their transportation, packaging, and storage leave behind.
Food delivery mainly burdens the environment in two ways: The increased amount of packaging materials. The greenhouse gases released during transportation.
Boxes, bags, plastic
When we eat at a restaurant, very little waste is produced — maybe just a napkin. Leftovers aren’t supposed to be left on the plate anyway, not only out of politeness but also because restaurants, for public health reasons, cannot reuse them, compost them, or feed them to animals. At home, however, leftovers can easily feed the cat or dog, or, if we live in a house with a garden, they can go straight into compost.
Restaurant dishes and cutlery can be reused after proper washing, so no waste is created — except in fast-food chains, where every single meal generates heaps of trash, even if consumed on-site. One of the most well-known fast-food chains boasts that they recycle over 80% of packaging, but it’s frightening to think about the remaining 20%. And if even 1% of that ends up on the street instead of in the bin, it still causes serious environmental harm. It’s bad enough to see burger wrappers flying around city streets, but far worse if they end up in fields, rivers, or oceans.
Traditional restaurants mainly generate waste when they start delivering. Meals go into boxes, and boxes go into bags. But this isn’t inevitable! Reusable plastic or glass containers exist — however, restaurant orders are often one-off, meaning the customer may never order again, so returnable containers would remain with them. That’s why most restaurants stick to disposables. Among disposables, biodegradable options such as paper or cellulose are, of course, far better.
Route planning at its best
The other major factor in the ecological footprint of food delivery comes from the transportation itself. Hats off to bike delivery companies — and especially to the couriers pedaling away — but we all know that if all deliveries relied solely on bicycles, it wouldn’t be financially viable for restaurants. Alongside cyclists, countless scooter couriers fill the city with fumes. Car couriers often go unnoticed, as not every vehicle bears a company logo. Most would agree that scooters are the worst: two-stroke scooters pollute more than cars, even if they use less fuel — not to mention the noise.
But the solution isn’t necessarily “greener vehicles.” The core issue lies in the spontaneity of customer orders. As long as people expect their food within 10 minutes of deciding they’re hungry, delivery companies can’t rationalize — or green — their routes. A pizza will be taken out one by one, maybe to a couple of nearby addresses, and then it’s back to the kitchen, only to start the cycle again — sometimes to the very same neighborhood.
If we were to map out couriers’ daily routes, it wouldn’t take a math teacher to see that there’s a far more logical plan available. A circular route that connects multiple addresses is far shorter than the crisscrossing “star-shaped” pattern of constant back-and-forth trips.
And which route gets used doesn’t depend on the companies — but on the customers. If couriers had the chance to plan ahead, they could easily optimize their routes. But as long as orders flood in at the start of lunchtime, the large ecological footprint remains.
Thanks to effective communication, our customers place their orders at least one day in advance. This allows the kitchen to buy and prepare only the ingredients actually needed.
Because of pre-orders, couriers can plan their routes ahead of time. On average, they cover no more than 40 km per day — much less than a full-time pizza courier typically travels.
This solution not only saves fuel but also saves couriers’ time. They can earn the same pay in a much shorter period, leaving them more free time for other useful activities.
