After years of stress from environmental advocates, the worldwide retail big Amazon introduced final week that it has eradicated plastic air pillows from its world community of “success facilities,” as Amazon calls its warehouse and distribution amenities. World wide, merchandise inside the corporate’s packages are actually cushioned by paper-based padding that may be collected in curbside recycling applications.
“We’re dedicated to bettering how orders are shipped, for the nice of consumers and the planet,” Amazon wrote in a weblog publish.
The announcement represents the success of a promise Amazon made in June to work “towards full removing” of plastic air pillows from North America by the top of the yr. At the moment, the corporate stated it had already changed 95 % of its air pillows throughout the continent with paper filler. Years earlier than that, in 2021, Amazon eradicated plastic air pillows in Australia, and in 2022 it did the identical for orders shipped from its warehouses in Europe.
Oceana, a nonprofit ocean advocacy group, has dogged Amazon for a number of years over its use of plastics, largely via a collection of stories quantifying the corporate’s total plastic footprint and its contribution to aquatic plastic air pollution. Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice chairman for strategic initiatives, stated Amazon’s announcement is “truly fairly important,” regardless that the phaseout doesn’t apply to orders shipped by third-party sellers. Amazon hasn’t disclosed what fraction of its gross sales are fulfilled in that manner. “It’s nice information for the oceans and for the globe usually that the world’s greatest e-commerce firm did this,” Littlejohn stated.
Nonetheless, Amazon continues to make use of tens of hundreds of tons of plastic yearly in different types of packaging — a lot of it skinny, filmy plastic utilized in supply luggage and padded mailers. Plastic movie just isn’t solely nearly unattainable to recycle, but in addition the most typical type of plastic litter in coastal waters and the most deadly kind of plastic to giant marine animals. Oceana and different environmental teams say the corporate ought to strengthen its plastic-reduction guarantees by setting deadlines to maneuver away from all kinds of single-use plastic packaging, and scaling up reusable options.
“We would like the corporate to make a dedication to do extra,” Littlejohn advised Grist. He stated Amazon’s actions might affect different giant retailers to additionally scale back their plastics use.
Amazon is likely one of the largest firms on this planet, with an estimated worth close to $2 trillion and annual income above $600 billion. It operates in 21 nations and ships to many extra. Within the U.S., Amazon controls practically 40 % of the e-commerce market.
Thus far, Amazon’s best progress on plastic discount has occurred in worldwide jurisdictions, probably on account of stronger laws on single-use plastics. The corporate’s warehouses in India have been plastic packaging-free since 2020, and its European distribution facilities stopped utilizing plastic supply luggage in 2022. These modifications contributed to a 9 % self-reported decline in world plastic use between 2022 and 2023, in accordance with an Amazon spokesperson.
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Plastic discount has been slower within the U.S., maybe due to the sheer measurement of its largest market. Oceana has estimated that Amazon generated 208 million kilos of plastic packaging trash in the US in 2022 — about 10 % greater than the earlier yr — though this doesn’t account for the corporate’s most up-to-date efforts to transition to paper. In its latest weblog publish, Amazon stated it has now retrofitted greater than 120 automated packing machines throughout the nation to allow them to make paper luggage, somewhat than plastic ones.
Amazon additionally hinted in its 2022 sustainability report that it was “phasing out padded luggage containing plastics,” presumably referring to its ubiquitous blue-and-white mailers. Littlejohn stated Amazon ought to make this dedication extra exact by clarifying its geographical scope and a timeline for carrying out it.
The corporate additionally stated in its most up-to-date sustainability report that it’s “working to scale back our use of single-use plastic packaging in favor of household-recyclable options.” Littlejohn stated that the emphasis on curbside recycling — as an alternative of specialty take-back applications at retail shops — is significant. Presently, the corporate’s blue-and-white mailers characteristic a label directing clients to “retailer drop-off” recycling receptacles at areas like Kohl’s, Safeway, and Cease & Store. However investigations from the media and environmental teams have proven that plastic collected in these receptacles is usually despatched to landfills and incinerators, somewhat than to a recycler. Plastic movie that does get reprocessed is downgraded into nonrecyclable merchandise like deck chairs.
In response to Grist’s request for remark, an Amazon spokesperson pointed to beforehand introduced plastic discount efforts, together with the whole elimination of plastic packaging from two U.S. distribution amenities.
“We acknowledge the significance of lowering single-use plastic, within the U.S. and globally, however this could’t be achieved in a single day,” the spokesperson wrote in an electronic mail. They went on to say that Amazon is “obsessive about getting this proper for patrons, and we’re extremely happy with the progress to this point.”
Amazon additionally stated in its weblog publish from final week that its first precedence is “to take away packaging altogether,” that means it tries to ship merchandise of their authentic packaging somewhat than including Amazon-branded sleeves, luggage, bins, and padding. As of December of final yr, Amazon was delivery one-third of its gross sales in North America with none extra packaging, and it stated it will enhance this fraction to two-thirds by December 2024.
As You Sow is a nonprofit shareholder advocacy group that has filed a number of resolutions at Amazon asking the corporate to reveal and scale back its plastic packaging footprint. Conrad MacKerron, the group’s senior vice chairman, famous that there are nonetheless loads of alternatives exterior of Amazon’s e-commerce enterprise to chop down on pointless plastic packaging. For instance, he stated, Amazon sells many private-label meals and beverage merchandise which can be packed in versatile plastic, like luggage of nuts and candies. These merchandise contribute to plastic air pollution, even when they’re shipped to consumers in a paper envelope.
Amazon additionally owns Entire Meals, one of many largest grocery chains in the US, the place total aisles of merchandise are offered in flimsy plastic packaging that’s nearly unattainable to recycle. Many of those merchandise are offered below the Amazon-owned label 365 by Entire Meals Market. “Not like PET bottles, that versatile packaging can’t be recycled actually wherever on this planet at this level. All of that goes to the landfill,” MacKerron stated. He stated he’d prefer to see Amazon “reevaluate” its grocery retailer plastic use, “provided that there’s nothing on the horizon that’s going to supply a recycling possibility” for it.
