Online e-commerce giant Amazon released an update on its sustainability goals, announcing it has hit its goal of replacing plastic air pillows with paper filler throughout North America.
In June, the company noted in its sustainability report that it had removed 95% of plastic air pillows from delivery packaging in North America, with the goal of 100% by the end of 2024.
Amazon had already replaced 100% of plastic air pillows with paper and cardboard across its European fulfillment network in 2022, the report added, and in 2020 removed single-use, thin-film plastic packaging from its Indian fulfillment centers.
Earlier this month, Amazon followed up with an announcement that it had removed all plastic air pillows from delivery packaging at its global fulfillment centers.
“As part of this transition, we were able to quickly expand our use of paper filler made from 100% recycled content across North America to replace plastic air pillows, our biggest reduction in plastic packaging in North America to date,” the company reported.
The changes have resulted in more than 1 billion single-use plastic delivery bags replaced since 2019, Amazon said. In 2023, the company avoided more than 446,000 metric tons of packaging of all types, by shipping 12% of its global orders without additional packaging. Amazon also decreased its average plastic packaging weight per shipment by 9% across its global operations network.
“Altogether, we’ve avoided 80,500 metric tons of single-use plastic packaging since 2020,” the latest announcement noted.
Eliminating all single-use plastic packaging in certain settings
Amazon has expanded the number of automated fulfillment centers that no longer use any single-use plastic delivery packaging. It announced the first one in 2023, and since then has retrofitted more than 20 centers.
“To do this, our engineers reimagined machinery that previously used plastic, and retrofitted the machines to use a new type of more durable, weather-resistant paper with heat-sealing technology,” the press release stated. “We also invented new machines with improved made-to-fit technology and transitioned from plastic air pillows to paper filler made from 100% recycled content. This was the first step in a multi-year effort to transition North America fulfillment centers to paper.”
Amazon has since developed a new generation of this machine, allowing it to be used for larger products.
“New sensors on the machine help us measure all dimensions of a product, allowing us to create more correctly sized packaging, reducing the amount of paper we use,” the press release stated. “Variations of this automated packaging technology, which cuts made-to-fit paper bags for individual items, are being used in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia.”
The company also announced another goal: In December 2023, two-thirds of shipments in North America included Amazon-added plastic delivery packaging, and by December 2024, it wants to reduce that number by a third.
A version of this story appeared in Resource Recycling News on Oct. 15.
