Amazon Furthers Its Sustainable Packaging Policy
From reducing packaging to increasing the use of materials that can be easily recycled, Amazon is dedicated to reshaping how orders are shipped for the good of customers and the planet.
Compared to electric vehicles, green hydrogen, or the next generation of photovoltaics, packaging may seem rather mundane when it comes to minimizing carbon emissions. But as you consider practical ways to minimize carbon emissions, eliminate waste, and increase recyclability, packaging is critical.
The materials most commonly used in packaging by companies have been the same for decades – ranging from paper and plastic, to aluminum and glass. Like most other retailers, Amazon makes use of a variety of packaging options for product shipping to optimize for strong durability, light weight, and optimal size, including paper-based options, such as boxes and paperboard envelopes—and plastics, such as envelopes and bags. Many retailers adopted plastics for some shipments because they are lightweight, waterproof, and enable less material to be used. And, since they are light and compact, plastic packaging has generally resulted in lower carbon emissions.
However, plastics, especially single-use plastics, are hard to recycle so are more likely to create waste in the long term. Even though the plastic packaging Amazon uses today is recyclable, it generally requires its customers to take the materials from their homes to store drop-off locations.
One of the first priorities of Amazon has been to eliminate the use of additional Amazon packaging altogether. Over the last several years, Amazon has invested in technologies, processes, and materials that have helped reduce the weight of the packaging per shipment by 38% and eliminated the use of more than 1.5 million tons of packaging materials since 2015 despite the number of shipments having substantially increased as its business has grown.
Additionally, in the midst of a rapid increase in customer orders throughout the pandemic, the company continued to take steps to reduce single-use plastics in our outbound packaging. In 2021, Amazon reduced average plastic packaging weight per shipment by over 7%, resulting in 97,222 metric tons of single-use plastic being used across its global operations network to ship orders to customers.
