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 international success facilities,” the e-commerce large stated in an October 9th blog post.
It’s a welcome change following years of stress from environmental teams to cease plastic air pollution flooding into oceans. The corporate remains to be working to scale back using 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 vp of strategic initiatives on the nonprofit Oceana, stated in a statement in response to Amazon’s announcement.
Probably the most prolific sort of plastic litter close to coastlines is plastic movie — a cloth that makes up these as soon as ubiquitous air pillows, in response to Oceana. That movie additionally occurs to be the “deadliest” sort of plastic air pollution for giant mammals like whales and dolphins that might ingest it, Oceana says.
Amazon’s announcement comes after it pledged in June to eliminate plastic air pillows in North America by the end of the year. 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 totally eradicate 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.
