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theguardian.com

Amazon increased US plastic

packaging despite global phase-out,
report says
Oliver Milman

5-7 minutos

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 in the amount of packaging it
produced in 2021, according to Oceana, a US 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 with 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.

Oceana said that the persistent reliance on plastics in the US is

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“troubling”, pointing to evidence that much of this waste will end up

ingested by marine animals or strewn along coastal areas.
According to the group, up to 22m pounds (9.9m kg) of Amazon’s
global plastic packaging from 2022 will have ended up in the
world’s waterways and seas. Oceana’s analysis cites a 2020
scientific study published in Science that found 11% of plastic
waste globally ended up in aquatic ecosystems in 2016.

“This sort of plastic film is a big problem for the oceans and a lot of
it can’t be recycled,” said Matt Littlejohn, senior vice-president of
strategic initiatives at Oceana.

“Amazon is one of the most innovative companies on the planet. It

has eliminated plastic packaging in Europe and they can clearly do
so across the US, too, even without regulatory pressure. This is a
completely solvable problem. They have just got to get on with
solving it. They know what to do.”

Amazon has disputed Oceana’s analysis, calling it “misleading”

and highlighting its global reduction in plastic use, although the
company did not disclose US-specific figures on plastic packaging
that counter the report’s findings.

The company has pointed to its efforts to reduce per-shipment

packaging weight which, since 2015, have cut out more than 2m
tons of packaging, as well as the unveiling last year of its first
automated US fulfillment centre, located in Ohio, that replaces
plastic packaging and air pillow fillers with paper alternatives.

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Agenda Antárctica’s redesigned flag for the icy continent

highlights the impact of microplastics. Photograph: Agenda
Antárctica

“Amazon is committed to reducing or eliminating packaging

altogether, including the use of single-use plastic, and we’ve
shown this by sharing consistent and transparent updates on our
progress,” said Pat Lindner, vice-president of mechatronics and
sustainable packaging at Amazon.

“We’ve also started a multiyear effort to eliminate plastic delivery

packaging from our US automated fulfillment centers, with the first
already in operation and delivering to customers without any
plastic packaging. We’ll continue to invest, invent and scale our
packaging reduction work for the good of customers and the
planet.”

The report comes amid mounting evidence showing the

prevalence of plastics in the environment, from litter in cities,
beaches and oceans to invasions of more fundamental elements
of life, with long-lasting plastics breaking down into microscopic
pieces that are found in our bloodstreams, placentas and even the
air we breathe.

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“We are swimming in and breathing in this plastic, and this stuff

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lasts for an eternity,” said Littlejohn. “I don’t think the general public
has caught onto how scary this all is.”

Two years ago in Kenya, governments agreed at a United Nations

summit to forge a legally binding international treaty by the end of
2024 to stem plastic pollution, which Espen Barth Eide, president
of the UN gathering, warned “has grown into an epidemic”.

The next round of negotiations over this treaty will be held later
this month in Canada and activists have called for a strong
agreement that curbs single-use plastics and meaningfully reforms
an opaque and often illusory recycling system.

One group, Agenda Antárctica, has even undertaken a redesign of

Antarctica’s unofficial flag to one that shows the vast frozen
continent riddled with microplastics, following studies that have
shown that plastic has been found in the remote polar region’s
snow.

“To see somewhere so pristine and untouched by mankind and

discover it has been polluted by plastics so small you can’t see
them was just awful to me,” said Graham Bartram, a vexillologist
who designed an unofficial flag that has been used informally to
depict the continent since the 1990s – no single country owns the
frozen continent – and who has now redesigned the flag to depict
the plastic pollution.

“I don’t think plastics are inherently evil, they can be very useful,
but we can use them sensibly,” said Bartram. “I hope the flag
makes people think a little about what we are doing to the planet.
Let’s face it: we only have one planet, it’s not like we have a back-
up plan of moving to another one next door.”

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