Amazon will soon remove all plastic air-pillow packaging from its deliveries and replace it with recycled paper.
In an announcement Thursday, the company said all boxes will have any empty space filled and cushioned with 100% recycled paper by the end of the year.
“I’m proud of the cross-Amazon collaboration to make a positive impact on the customer delivery experience with easier to recycle materials. It’s a great example of how we thoughtfully test and scale new solutions to protect our customer experience,” Pat Lindner, Amazon’s vice president of mechatronics and sustainable packaging, said in a statement.
The company began a test run on replacing plastic package filler with paper in late 2023 at its automated fulfillment center in Ohio. Amazon said this testing process helped it develop cleaner and more effective package protection.
“Through our testing of paper filler — which included an assessment by a third-party engineer lab — we discovered that it offers the same, if not better, protection to products than plastic air pillows. The paper filler is also curbside recyclable, making it easier for our customers to recycle at home, and made from 100% percent recycled content,” the company said in a statement.
Environmentalists have long criticized Amazon’s use of plastics in its packaging. According to Oceana, an advocacy group that tracks worldwide ocean pollution, Amazon produced over 700 million pounds of plastic waste in 2021.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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