People do the environment a favour by not buying a new gadget in a hurry and allowing the ones they have to run their full life cycle. For instance, those buying and selling on OLX India, an online classifieds site for used items, have unintentionally reduced the carbon footprint by eight million tonnes (mt) of carbon dioxide in a year.

By not buying a new car or a mobile phone, the user reduces over 2,000 kg and about 40 kg of carbon emission, respectively, that would have been added to the atmosphere had a new product been manufactured.

This is how those who bought and sold their usable wares on the OLX India platform in a year prevented the release of eight mt of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s environment and helped control the greenhouse effect.

To calculate the carbon footprint impact, OLX India partnered with Chennai-based Arun Krishnamurthy, Founder, Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI). “We expect a 30 per cent CAGR in the next two years and reduce carbon footprint correspondingly,” Irwin Preet Singh Anand, Chief Operating Officer, OLX India, told BusinessLine on the eve of World Environment Day.

With a user base of 40 million, OLX India is one of the largest Internet sites in India. With 15 million transactions per annum, it prevents production of new gadgets and other items, thus saving the environment. Cars, phones, electronic and personal goods are among the dozen major product categories for these transactions, he said.

Anand said OLX India has 4.4 million listings per month. “Ninety percent of our traffic comes from apps and the mobile website.

Reselling, reusing and recycling a product can actually help at least five more users over the remaining life of the product, Anand said.