The same year, 2022, company replaced plastic sleeves in EU with paper and cardboard, and cut plastic packaging globally by 11.6%

The amount of plastic packaging waste created by Amazon has increased in the US even as the online retail giant sought to phase out plastics elsewhere in the world, a report claims, amid growing pressure for a global treaty to end plastic pollution.

Amazon created 208m pounds (94m kg) of plastic packaging in the US in 2022, equal to the weight of nearly 14,000 large African elephants, which is a 9.8% increase on the amount of packaging it produced in 2021, according to Oceana, an American marine conservation group that used industry data and Amazon’s market announcements to form its analysis.

The increase in 2022 occurred even as Amazon made headway in reducing its plastic use elsewhere in the world, cutting its plastic packaging globally by 11.6% compared to a year previously. In Europe, the company has replaced its plastic delivery sleeves with paper and cardboard, amid new rules from the European Union aimed at stamping out single-use plastics.

  • Chestnut@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    They have a cardboard/paper alternative but I bet it takes time, money, and training to replace the old plastic machines and if the old FCs are growing and doing more volume faster than Amazon it’s replacing them you’d get both Amazon being able to say they’re eliminating them AND their total plastic use going up

    I hope they can eliminate them sooner rather than later but there are so many Climate impacts for a company that large I’m not sure it’s even the most important thing I I’d want to see from them