Amazon announced it has achieved a major milestone, eliminating 95% of the plastic air pillows in its packaging in favor of paper filler.
Amazon has been working to improve its environmental impact. Given the number of packages Amazon ships, eliminating plastic filler materials can make a big difference in the company’s efforts. The company says it has already eliminated 95% of plastic air pillows, and is on target for full removal by the end of 2024.
We’re constantly inventing and thinking big to make our packaging small. We want to ensure that customers receive their items undamaged, while using as little packaging as possible to avoid waste, and prioritizing recyclable materials.
The removal of 95% of our plastic air pillows is another step in our path to avoid and reduce packaging—and part of our multi-year effort to remove plastic delivery packaging from North America fulfillment centers. To date, this will be Amazon’s largest plastic packaging reduction effort in North America and will avoid nearly 15 billion plastic air pillows annually. For Prime Day this year, nearly all of our customer deliveries will not contain plastic air pillows.
“I’m proud of the cross-Amazon collaboration to make a positive impact on the customer delivery experience with easier to recycle materials. It’s a great example of how we thoughtfully test and scale new solutions to protect our customer experience,” said Pat Lindner, VP of Mechatronics and Sustainable Packaging. “We are working towards full removal in North America by end of year and will continue to innovate, test, and scale in order to prioritize curbside recyclable materials.”
The company says it is also working to invent new materials and recycling solutions.
We’re also working to invent new materials and recycling solutions that keep both our customers and the environment in mind. For example, Amazon has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Energy to bring new materials and recycling programs to life. We’re also piloting new technology with Glacier, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company, to use AI-powered robots to automate the sorting of recyclables and collect real-time data on recycling streams for companies—which can help reduce landfill waste and increase the use of recycled materials in packaging.
The announcement is good news for climate activists and consumers alike, especially given the sheer volume of plastic Amazon previously used.