IN the Shenzhen Daily of Nov. 13 we could read about the group of cyclists who did a 400-km riding event from Shenzhen to Huizhou and back to promote a low-carbon lifestyle. However, the rest of the country was busy ordering a record number of goods online for the Single’s Day shopping festival at the same weekend. All these purchases are delivered one by one to consumers’ homes using hundreds of freighter planes, thousands of trucks and tens of thousands of tricycles and other IN the Shenzhen Daily of Nov. 13 we could read about the group of cyclists who did a 400-km riding event from Shenzhen to Huizhou and back to promote a low-carbon lifestyle. However, the rest of the country was busy ordering a record number of goods online for the Single’s Day shopping festival at the same weekend. All these purchases are delivered one by one to consumers’ homes using hundreds of freighter planes, thousands of trucks and tens of thousands of tricycles and other transportation means. Of course we should not forget that huge amounts are returned and that all are packed in mountains of cardboard and plastic. Welcome to the world’s low-carbon lifestyle. All over the world we talk the same talk but do a different walk.

It is about time that the online industry is getting the bill for all this pollution. We tend to just close down factories if the sky is not blue. However, what do we do against these polluters?  Jeffry Kuperus via email