🌱 iGo Sustainability
Every secondhand sale saves CO₂
Making a new phone, sofa or pair of jeans creates greenhouse gases. When you buy one that already exists, a new one often doesn't need to be made.
How we estimate it
CO₂e saved = CO₂e to make the item new × 0.5 − 1 kg
- CO₂e to make it new: a typical value for the item's category, from published product life-cycle studies (for example, manufacturers' environmental reports for phones and laptops, and clothing studies for jeans, T-shirts and shoes).
- × 0.5: not every secondhand purchase replaces a new one. Surveys of secondhand marketplaces find that roughly half of purchases do, so we only count that share.
- − 1 kg: an allowance for the trip or delivery to hand the item over.
- A sale is counted once, when the seller marks the ad as sold. If the ad is marked available again, it's removed from the total.
Examples
| Item | Made new | Saved per sale |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile phone | ≈ 70 kg | ≈ 34 kg |
| Laptop | ≈ 250 kg | ≈ 124 kg |
| TV | ≈ 300 kg | ≈ 149 kg |
| Washing machine | ≈ 250 kg | ≈ 124 kg |
| Furniture item | ≈ 90 kg | ≈ 44 kg |
| Bicycle | ≈ 100 kg | ≈ 49 kg |
| Jeans / trousers | ≈ 20 kg | ≈ 9 kg |
| Top / T-shirt | ≈ 7 kg | ≈ 2.5 kg |
| Pair of shoes | ≈ 14 kg | ≈ 6 kg |
| Toy | ≈ 8 kg | ≈ 3 kg |
| Book | ≈ 2 kg | ≈ 0 kg |
What isn't counted
- Vehicles: a car's footprint is so large that a few sales would outweigh everything else, and a used car sale rarely stops a new one being built.
- Property, jobs, services, food, tickets and personal-care products: reusing them doesn't replace making something new.
- Ads priced under Rs 500, ads marked sold very soon after posting, and unusually many sales by one seller in a day.
These are estimates
The real footprint depends on the exact product, where it was made and how it's used. We use typical values to show the scale of the benefit, not a certified carbon measurement. "CO₂e" (carbon dioxide equivalent) combines all greenhouse gases into one number. Car comparisons use about 0.17 kg CO₂e per km for an average petrol car, and tree comparisons about 21 kg absorbed per tree per year.