Amazon cutting down on plastic in the US, after years of criticism

“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,” Littlejohn said in a statement.

Amazon’s Lindner said the North American and European markets aren’t always the same. There are different regional companies that provide the recyclable paper Amazon will use to replace the plastic air pillows and different considerations for weather conditions. In North America, the packages also have to travel farther, changing the equation for the materials needed to move products around, Lindner said.

“Our focus, primarily, up to this date, has been on reducing, rightsizing and minimizing packaging,” Lindner said. “That was really a high priority for us.”

Now, he continued, as Amazon has made progress on that goal, it has turned to the next thing: making more of its packaging curbside recyclable.

Amazon pledged in 2019 to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, part of its Climate Pledge. Net zero broadly means reaching a balance between greenhouse gasses going into the climate and those coming out. The company says it’s making progress on its climate goals through efforts to electrify its delivery fleet, switch to renewable energy sources and reduce the amount of packaging in its supply chain.

But some activist groups say those efforts aren’t doing enough. Amazon saw a slight drop in greenhouse emissions from 2021 to 2022, according to the most recent data available from the company, but its total footprint remained millions of metric tons larger than at the start of its climate pledge commitment.

At Amazon’s shareholder meeting last month, some investors once again called on the company to set a “time-bound” goal to make its packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable. The proposal did not pass; about 24% of shareholders voted in favor.

Lindner said reducing plastic is a “complex process of innovation” that involves a lot of testing before it can scale the changes to Amazon’s entire warehouse network.

“Our strategy is to make sure we get it right,” he said. “Timelines are important, but quality for the customer and ease of use in our facility is of utmost importance. When we get that right, these solutions will be for the long term.”

To reduce the amount of plastic, paper and cardboard that goes into keeping its online store running, Amazon operates a Packaging Innovation Lab in Sumner where it tests different iterations of packaging to see how much it can remove without risking product damage. It tried out different types of paper filler in various weather conditions and situations a package might encounter on its journey to a customers’ doorstep, Lindner said.

It also tested the transition from plastic air pillows to filler paper at its first fully automated warehouse in Euclid, Ohio. There, it found that employees liked the change because the paper took up less space and was easy to manipulate inside the package, Lindner said.

Amazon does not disclose the cost of these types of projects, Lindner said.