Petition filed over e-tailers’ plastic use

Aditya Dubey, a 16-year-old class 11 student of Modern School - Delhi, has filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) against e-commerce giants — Amazon and Flipkart — for excessive use of plastic by these companies to deliver products.

TOI has seen a copy of the petition, which says Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart are using an excessive number of cardboard boxes, multiple layers of plastic sheets and bubble wraps to deliver products.

Dubey, an environment activist, said the petition was filed last week at the NGT and asked the tribunal to issues directions to these companies to stop the excessive usage of plastic. He told TOI that the companies are not taking up the responsibility though they operate on a large scale across the country. “Whenever they (Amazon or Flipkart) send a product, even if it is unbreakable, they put it in cardboard box double the required size. Then, typically, there are three more layers of cover and the invoice also comes in separate plastic cover. That’s really excessive,” Dubey said.

This comes at a time when PM Narendra Modi has been urging everyone to do away with single-use plastic. India has set up a deadline of 2022 to remove single-use plastic from the country. Last week, Modi was also seen picking up litter from a beach.

“Though this business model has been very useful for consumers as they can order from their homes, it has given rise to a very serious environmental challenge due to excessive use of single-use plastic packaging. It is not due to any necessity, but due to the irresponsible practices adopted by these companies,” the petition by Dubey noted.

To explain his case further, he added that e-tailers cover a novel with three layers of bubble wrap. The matter, which is expected to be listed for a hearing later this week, could set the ball rolling on the matter. While there is no official data yet as to how much plastic waste is being created by these companies, their growing popularity is a clear indicator of the potential scale in the future. Food delivery companies also use single-plastic for their deliveries.

Dubey has been leading environment-based campaigns for three years, especially through his ‘Plant A Million Tree’ initiative. He said he had tweeted to both Amazon and Flipkart on this issue. “But who listens to a 16-year old’s tweets?” he added.

When contacted, a spokesperson of Amazon India said the company was committed to a sustainable supply chain, while a Flipkart spokesperson said environmental sustainability is deeply embedded in the company’s DNA.

“We announced and outlined our vision of eliminating single-use plastic in our packaging by March 2021. We believe these initiatives make us more efficient and also significantly help us preserve our environment. We’re happy to add that as of August 1, 2019, we have already achieved a 25% reduction in usage of single-use plastics through various initiatives across our packaging value chain,” Flipkart added in its statement.

“Today, less than 7% of our packaging material consists of single use plastic and we are working towards eliminating the usage completely in our buildings in India by June 2020. Towards this, we have introduced ‘paper cushions’, which will replace plastic dunnage across our fulfilment centres in India by December 2019,” the Amazon spokesperson added.