The company said nearly all Prime Day packages will have paper filler instead of plastic pillows.
Amazon announced Thursday that it is saying goodbye to plastic pillow filling in its packaging as it transitions to recycled paper as part of its ongoing efforts to be more environmentally friendly.
The company said it has already replaced 95 percent of the plastic air pillows in its delivery packaging at fulfillment centers in North America and aims to completely remove them by the end of the year.
“We want to ensure that customers receive their items undamaged while using as little packaging as possible to avoid waste and prioritizing recyclable materials,” Amazon said in a
press release. “The removal of 95 percent 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.”
Amazon said the change will remove nearly 15 billion plastic air pillows from use annually.
Nearly all customer deliveries during next month’s Prime Day will be void of plastic pillows, Amazon said.
The e-commerce giant has come under fire about its use of plastic from some environmental groups, including the nonprofit Oceana, which has released its own reports on the plastic packaging waste generated by Amazon.
Matt Littlejohn, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at Oceana, welcomed Amazon’s efforts to reduce plastic packaging but said the company still needs to do more to reduce waste.
“While this is a significant step forward for the company, Amazon needs to build on this momentum and fulfill its multiyear commitment to transition its North America fulfillment centers away from plastic,” Mr. Littlejohn said in a statement. “Then, the company should expand these efforts and also push innovations like reusable packaging to move away from single-use packaging everywhere it sells and ships.” Earlier this year, Oceana estimated that Amazon “generated 208 million pounds of plastic packaging waste” in the United States in 2022, up more than 9.6 percent the year before, according to its
report, “Amazon’s United States of Plastic.”
Amazon investors have broadly supported the company’s efforts and urged it to outline its plan to reduce waste.
The company disclosed the amount of single-use plastic it used across global operations for the first time in 2022 after investors sought more details on plans to reduce waste. The company said it used 85,916 metric tons of single-use plastic that year, an 11.6 percent decrease from 2021.
According to Oceana, the reduction was largely due to Amazon’s reduction of plastic packaging outside the United States.
“For example, in Europe, the company has claimed it reduced single-use plastic delivery packaging with 100 percent recyclable paper and cardboard throughout its fulfillment network,” Oceana said in a
press release in April.
Amazon said it began moving away from plastic air pillows in October 2023 at an automated fulfillment center in Ohio, where the company said it was able to test and learn, which helped it transition more quickly to recycled paper filling.
The process required Amazon to change machinery and train employees on the new machines and systems.
Through its testing, Amazon said it discovered that the paper filler, which is made from 100 percent recyclable content and is curbside recyclable, provides the same—if not better—protection for shipping compared to plastic air pillows.
Christian Garcia, who works at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bakersfield, California, said in a press release that the paper filler is easier to work with and that the machinery gives staff more space so that it’s easier to pack orders.
The company’s ongoing efforts to reduce waste include a campaign to ship items without any additional packaging. In 2022, 11 percent of all Amazon’s packages shipped worldwide were without added delivery packaging.
Amazon said it is working with Glacier, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company, to use robots for automated recyclable sorting and to collect data on recycling streams. The company says this will help reduce landfill waste.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
