Amazon says that it has gotten rid of plastic air pillows at its warehouses.
“As of October 2024, we’ve eliminated all plastic air pillows from our supply packaging used at our world achievement facilities,” the e-commerce big mentioned in an October ninth weblog publish.
It’s a welcome change following years of strain from environmental teams to cease plastic air pollution flooding into oceans. The corporate continues to be working to scale back the usage of single-use plastics extra broadly in its packaging.
“Implausible information for the world’s oceans”
“The truth that the world’s largest e-commerce firm has made plastic air pillows historical past globally is improbable information for the world’s oceans,” Matt Littlejohn, senior vice chairman of strategic initiatives on the nonprofit Oceana, mentioned in an announcement in response to Amazon’s announcement.
Essentially the most prolific kind of plastic litter close to coastlines is plastic movie — a cloth that makes up these as soon as ubiquitous air pillows, based on Oceana. That movie additionally occurs to be the “deadliest” kind of plastic air pollution for giant mammals like whales and dolphins that may ingest it, Oceana says.
Amazon’s announcement comes after it pledged in June to eliminate plastic air pillows in North America by the top of the 12 months. The corporate swapped out plastic air pillows and single-use supply baggage for paper and cardboard options in Europe in 2022. It additionally ditched plastic movie packaging at its amenities in India in 2020.
The US is Amazon’s largest market, and the corporate hasn’t managed to completely remove plastic packaging in North America simply but. It says it plans to scale back the quantity of deliveries containing “Amazon-added plastic supply packaging” in North America to only one-third of shipments by December, down from two-thirds in December 2023.
