Amazon India says it will eliminate single-use plastic in packaging by June 2020

This comes after Flipkart announced that it will move towards a 100% recycled plastic consumption in its own supply chain by March 2021.
Amazon India says it will eliminate single-use plastic in packaging by June 2020
Amazon India says it will eliminate single-use plastic in packaging by June 2020
Written by:

Amazon India has said that it will eliminate single-use plastic from its packaging by June 2020. The company, which packages ‘sealed air’ pillows or bubble wrap inside a lot of their packaging, has said that they will be introducing ‘paper cushions to fill up the space inside boxes. 

In a post, the company said that less than 7% of the packaging in its fulfilment centres is single-use plastic in nature and that all such material would be collected this month. It has also said that its packaging material such as corrugated boxes and paper cushions contain as high as 100% recycled content and is also fully recyclable. 

“Amazon India is aggressively developing plastic-free alternatives for packaging mailers, bubble bags, stretch wrap and tape used in the packaging which will help the company eliminate all forms of plastic used in its packaging,” the company said in a post. 

Single-use plastic are disposable plastics, which are used once and discarded. According to United Nations Environment Programme, plastic can take up to a thousand years to decompose if not recycled. Most of this is non-biodegradable, and ends up in landfills or in water bodies, and endanger marine life.

60% of Amazon pantry deliveries are now in tote bags, and the company has increased the times a customer receives multiple items in the same box, it added. 

This comes just days after Amazon’s primary rival in India, Flipkart, announced that it will move towards a 100% recycled plastic consumption in its own supply chain by March 2021. In a statement, the company said that as of August 1, 2019, it reduced the usage of single-use plastic by 25%.

These announcements also come ahead of the Centre’s plan to phase out single-use plastic by October 2, as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Independence Day. There were then reports that single-use plastic such as plastic bags, cups, plates, small bottles, straws and certain types of sachets would be banned by October 2.

Officials had also said that they were going to be putting the onus on e-commerce companies to find alternatives 

“They (e-commerce companies) are the ones creating all this waste, so the onus of recycling it has to be put on them as well,” said environment secretary CK Mishra had said.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The News Minute
www.thenewsminute.com