Amazon’s Plastic Waste Soared in 2021, Report Finds

This story was initially revealed by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.

Plastic packaging waste from the net retail big Amazon ballooned to 709 million kilos globally in 2021 — equal to the load of some 70,000 killer whales — in response to a brand new report revealed Thursday by the nonprofit Oceana. That’s an 18 p.c enhance over Oceana’s estimate of Amazon’s plastic packaging for 2020, indicating a rising drawback that environmental advocates — and even Amazon’s personal shareholders — say the corporate is doing too little to handle.

Amazon’s plastic packaging “is a problem for the world’s waterways and oceans, and it’s an issue they need to be prioritizing,” mentioned Dana Miller, Oceana’s director of strategic initiatives and an creator of the report. If all the corporate’s plastic from 2021 had been transformed into plastic air pillows — the inflated pouches inserted in some Amazon packages to scale back shifting throughout transit — and laid facet by facet, Miller mentioned it might circle the globe greater than 800 instances.

As the largest retailer on the planet, Amazon goes via plenty of plastic. It ships 7.7 billion packages around the globe every year, typically utilizing plastic air pillows, baggage, and protecting sleeves to cushion merchandise throughout transit. Environmental advocates say these are a number of the worst sorts of plastics: They can’t be recycled, and their mild weight makes them susceptible to drifting into the oceans, the place they kill more large marine mammals than some other sort of ocean particles. As the plastics break down, they not solely leach dangerous chemical substances however may also bind with new ones within the setting, posing toxicity risks to the mussels, oysters, whales, and different animals that unintentionally ingest them.

This plastic “is not a friendly visitor to the oceans,” Miller mentioned. Her group estimated that 26 million kilos of Amazon’s plastic waste from 2021 will finally find yourself on the earth’s oceans, rivers, and different aquatic ecosystems.

Plastics additionally trigger hurt throughout the manufacturing part, emitting greenhouse gases and posing environmental justice considerations. Petrochemical services that make plastics are typically sited close to disproportionately low-income communities and communities of shade, exposing them to hazardous chemical substances which are linked to cancer, respiratory disease, and neurological problems.

Historically, the difficult half about holding Amazon accountable for plastic air pollution has been its secrecy across the situation. The firm has repeatedly declined to reveal its plastic packaging use, even after buyers proudly owning practically 50 percent of Amazon’s shares voted in favor of a shareholder decision demanding it. Conrad MacKerron, senior vice chairman of the shareholder advocacy group that filed the decision, As You Sow, mentioned Amazon has ignored his group because the vote final May. “It’s really appalling behavior from a company like this,” he instructed Grist.

It wasn’t till this week, two days earlier than Oceana’s report got here out, that Amazon supplied its personal estimate for its plastic packaging footprint. In a blog post, the corporate mentioned it used about 214 million kilos of single-use plastic packaging to ship orders to clients in 2021 — lower than one-third the quantity Oceana calculated.

Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice chairman for strategic initiatives, mentioned it’s because Amazon’s estimate solely accounts for plastic packaging used for orders despatched via Amazon-owned and operated success facilities — which account for an undisclosed fraction of Amazon’s complete gross sales. (Amazon instructed Grist its figures symbolize “the majority of plastics used” to ship orders to its clients, and that it offers third-party sellers “incentives” to scale back packaging.) Oceana’s estimate, against this, considers all gross sales facilitated by Amazon, together with these fulfilled via third-party sellers.

Amazon’s reported determine “is not directly comparable to Oceana’s estimate,” Littlejohn mentioned in a press release. To make its calculation, Oceana used publicly out there information on the quantity of plastic packaging waste from e-commerce in nations representing Amazon’s high 9 markets and Amazon’s market share in these nations. Assuming that Amazon’s market share is correlated with its use of plastic packaging, Oceana multiplied the 2 numbers collectively, concluding that the retailer used about 709 million kilos of plastic packaging in 2021.

“Until Amazon is fully transparent on its company-wide use of plastic packaging,” Littlejohn continued in his assertion, Oceana’s calculation “is the best available estimate of the company’s total plastic footprint.”

MacKerron, with As You Sow, echoed Oceana’s considerations and famous that Amazon’s weblog put up nonetheless doesn’t deal with requests for the corporate to set quantitative plastic-reduction targets. Instead, it speaks in broad phrases and highlights two initiatives the place Amazon is changing single-use plastics with paper options, one among which was first introduced three years ago.

Other options proffered by Amazon — like educating consumers about waste management and funding extra plastic assortment infrastructure — lean on plastics recycling, which consultants say won’t ever scale as much as grow to be a viable resolution to the plastic air pollution disaster. Virtually no U.S. curbside recycling programs settle for the sort of plastic that goes into Amazon’s plastic packaging, which means most of it have to be dumped into landfills or incinerated. Amazon tries to get round this by encouraging clients to deposit packaging at “store drop-off” assortment factors for plastic movie, which is ostensibly then picked up and recycled, however consultants imagine these packages are a “charade.” Not even 6 p.c of Amazon customers say they use them, and Oceana’s personal investigation into 186 of the U.S. and U.Okay. drop-off areas that Amazon promotes on its web site revealed that not less than 41 p.c don’t really settle for Amazon’s plastic packaging.

Environmental advocates say Amazon is able to rather more to scale back plastic waste, as evidenced by steps the corporate has already taken in different nations. In response to a plastic elimination coverage in India, Amazon says it changed all of its single-use plastics there. For orders originating from the EU, the place the European Commission has proposed plastic reduction requirements for e-commerce, Amazon has mentioned it not makes use of single-use plastic baggage, pouches, or air cushions.

In the U.S., environmental advocates hope laws enacted in California earlier this yr may catalyze motion from Amazon. The statewide Plastic Pollution Producer Responsibility Act would require corporations working in California to slash the quantity of plastic they produce and promote by not less than 25 p.c between 2023 and 2032. Because California represents about 15 percent of the U.S. financial system, Amazon is predicted to comply with the regulation nationwide moderately than develop separate protocols for the Golden State.

Still, Oceana needs Amazon to preempt these insurance policies and scale back plastics voluntarily. “It’s the right thing to do,” Miller mentioned. Her group is looking on Amazon to make a company-wide dedication to scale back its worldwide plastic packaging one-third under 2022 ranges by 2030 — along with releasing public experiences on its complete plastic use.

According to MacKerron, these asks are “quite mild,” given the lots of of different corporations — together with firms that generate large quantities of plastic waste, like Unilever and Mondelez — which have lengthy disclosed their complete plastic packaging use and have set targets to scale back it. (They could also be failing to meet those targets, however their actions counsel Amazon may publish a quantitative goal if it needed to.) A brand new shareholder decision filed by As You Sow on Tuesday says Amazon is “falling behind its peers.”

Oceana’s closing demand is for Amazon to account for and scale back the local weather influence and plastics footprint of all of the merchandise it sells on its web site. An investigation revealed earlier this yr revealed that Amazon’s pledge to attain net-zero local weather air pollution by 2040 counts life cycle emissions just for merchandise with an Amazon model label, which account for simply 1 p.c of the corporate’s on-line gross sales. Miller mentioned it’s crucial that Amazon appropriate this error and never replicate it within the plastic-reduction coverage that Oceana is asking for.

“Amazon should take responsibility for the full climate impact of all products sold through its website and all packaging used to ship these sales,” Oceana says in its report.