Amazon takes enormous step to reduce packaging waste

Say goodbye to the guilt generated by those plastic air pillows stuffed into your Amazon purchase — the company announced earlier this month it's ceasing use of the eco-unfriendly packaging material.

"As of October 2024, we’ve removed all plastic air pillows from our delivery packaging used at our global fulfillment centers," Amazon wrote on its blog. "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."

Amazon has been announcing more sustainable steps in recent years, a necessity as its logistics business becomes a shipping behemoth. According to Capital One Shopping, 27.3% of all packages shipped in the U.S. went through Amazon Logistics last year, while the companies U.S. package volume increased 15.7% from 2022 to 2023. The company also has a huge global business, mailing out products throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America.

The removal of the plastic air pillows — which are possible, but often difficult, to recycle and contain a film often deadly to marine life — coincides with Amazon's slow transition away from plastic packaging. "In 2023, we decreased our average plastic packaging weight per shipment by 9% across Amazon’s global operations network, building on a 17% reduction in 2022," the company states. "Altogether, we’ve avoided 80,500 metric tons of single-use plastic packaging since 2020."

Still, the company's strides in plastic reduction have occurred mostly via overseas packaging changes. A recent report in The Guardian states Amazon's plastic packaging in the U.S. actually increased nearly 10% from 2021 to 2022. Back in December, two-thirds of Amazon's North America shipments included plastic delivery packaging. The company states an aim to reduce that by a third by December 2024.

As part of its pivot from plastic, Amazon is encouraging some consumers to opt out of packaging altogether, via its Ships in Product Packaging initiative. Products approved for zero packaging have been certified by Amazon and the specific products' retailers as safe to travel without mailers; this excludes products deemed intimate, collectible, possibly dangerous to handle, and of high-value. Surprisingly, some fragile items have been determined by Amazon as possible to ship sans packaging.

If a product still requires packaging material, Amazon is utilizing paper more often. The company retrofitted 120 plastic bag-making machines so that they now encase packages in made-to-fit paper bags. Much of Amazon's paper packaging, from cardboard boxes to paper padded envelope mailers, is recyclable — get more info here.