Amazon Ditches Plastic Air Pillows

Amazon has reached its goal set earlier this year to completely get rid of plastic air pillows at its warehouses by the end of the year. "As of October 2024, we've removed all plastic air pillows from our delivery packaging used at our global fulfillment centers," the e-commerce giant said in an October 9th blog post. The Verge reports: It's a welcome change following years of pressure from environmental groups to stop plastic pollution flooding into oceans. The company is still working to reduce the use of single-use plastics more broadly in its packaging. The most prolific type of plastic litter near coastlines is plastic film -- a material that makes up those once ubiquitous air pillows, according to Oceana. That film also happens to be the "deadliest" type of plastic pollution for large mammals like whales and dolphins that might ingest it, Oceana says.

The company swapped out plastic air pillows and single-use delivery bags for paper and cardboard alternatives in Europe in 2022. It also ditched plastic film packaging at its facilities in India in 2020. The US is Amazon's largest market, and the company hasn't managed to fully eliminate plastic packaging in North America just yet. It says it plans to reduce the amount of deliveries containing "Amazon-added plastic delivery packaging" in North America to just one-third of shipments by December, down from two-thirds in December 2023.

A long way to go

[Guspaz]

The vast majority of my small orders in Canada are still delivered in plastic Amazon mailers and not the paper mailers. It's probably a 10:1 ratio. It's not clear to me what the difficulty is. Just use less of the plastic ones and more of the paper ones.

Re:

[Firethorn]

Maybe the manufacturer of the paper ones can't (yet) meet the quantities needed for that?

I mean, it's one thing for me to go out and buy something like 100 paper padded mailers, quite another for Amazon to buy hundreds of millions of them.

Re:

[ls671]

The whole idea of shipping individually packaged and wrapped stuff to every single customer like Amazon does is a sick idea from the beginning. I never bought anything from Amazon yet. I much rather encourage the local economy. The rest they do like what is stated in this FA is just virtue signaling without any real considerable value IMHO.

A case of effectiveness, yet damaging

[stulew]

2 grams of plastic and air is so effective at cushioning and preventing damaged items. Yet the end waste product had almost no secondary function. Unless one likes to hear it pop.

Just got a plastic bubble envelope today.

[Fly Swatter]

Amazon just trying to look good while sending out bubble envelopes with a great big CAN NOT BE RECYCLED symbol. Oh, what did I order? a $5 set of rubber washers that clearly needed a 9x12 plastic bubble wrap envelope... It's probably more plastic than 5 air pillows. SMH

If only

[dicobalt]

there was a way to return your boxes and other packaging to Amazon...