Amazon is replacing all plastic air pillows with crumpled paper in its packaging

midian182

midian182

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In a nutshell: Have you noticed recently that the plastic air pillows Amazon used to stuff into its fragile deliveries have been disappearing, and replaced with paper filler? It's part of the company's environmental push that will see the use of the pillows completely eliminated by the end of the year.

Amazon has announced that it has now reduced the use of plastic air pillows in its packages by 95% in North America as it switches to crumpled paper. The tech giant says it's part of a multi-year effort to remove plastic delivery packaging from fulfillment centers and focus on using recycled materials.

The company says this is its largest plastic packaging reduction effort to date, and will avoid nearly 15 billion plastic air pillows annually. At its next Prime Day, which takes place in July, Amazon plans to use paper filler instead of plastic air pillows for nearly all of its customer deliveries.

One might imagine that the paper offers less protection than the air pillows, but Amazon says that its testing, which included assessment by a third-party engineering lab, shows the paper offers the same, if not better, protection for fragile goods. The paper is also curbside recyclable so customers can recycle it at home, and it's made from 100% recycled content.

Amazon first started moving away from plastic delivery packaging in October 2023, when it announced the first automated US fulfillment center to eliminate plastic packaging in favor of paper solutions.

The move will be welcomed by environmental groups. Oceana found that Amazon generated 599 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2020, a 29% increase over the 2019 estimate of 465 million pounds. It was found that the estimated plastic packaging waste from Amazon, in the form of air pillows alone, could circle the Earth more than 600 times.

The group estimated that up to 23.5 million pounds of Amazon's plastic packaging waste entered and polluted the world's waterways and oceans in 2020, equivalent to dumping a delivery van's payload of plastic into the oceans every 67 minutes.

In 2023, Amazon employees staged a walkout over the company's return-to-work policy and their displeasure at its impact on the environment. They stated that Amazon was failing to meet its self-imposed goals of reaching zero emissions by 2040.

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Amazon is replacing all plastic air pillows with crumpled paper in its packaging

 
Just exchanging one inadequate packing means for another. It won't do anything to prevent the contents of the package from being damaged - especially if the packing material is as shown in the picture in the article. IMO, Amazon does not put enough packing material, whatever the type, in its packages to prevent damage from occurring during shipping.

Yet another empty move by Amazon trying to make it look like they are improving their service.
 
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The paper will work just fine if it's used properly, but the same can be said about air pillows. If there are large gaps and product inside the boxes can easily shift around then it doesn't matter what you use for packing material because it isn't helping.

If moving to paper allows them to pack boxes better, then I'm all for it. I've had such shotty packed packages from Amazon over all the years I have purchased stuff through them that I've pretty much swore off using Amazon a few years ago (they are my absolute last ditch resort if I can't find what I'm after somewhere else). If moving to paper helps them pack things better I may throw them a few extra orders here and there.

I'm sure it will also be a price point in saving money on their end is the main reason they're switching. Paper comes on rolls, just tear it off. Air cushion bags require machines to fill and seal them if you're not buying them already filled and sealed already. If you have machines they will break down and need to be repaired or replaced. Paper, just put it on a roller and replace the empty roll with a new one - no machine to maintaine.
 
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What difference does it make when they pack 2 lightbulbs in a box the size of my oven using 3 air pillows or the front page of the NYTimes. It’s still not enough to prevent damage.
 
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OMG, the comments here are spot on! Yeah, they repeatedly put fragile things in a big box with heavy things and a couple tiny token things pretend to protect the contents. I have had to send stuff back several times. That may be the only way to get them to do better.

Ideally we would have a system that has packing that goes back to them to be reused.
 
Neatfeatguy said:
The paper will work just fine if it's used properly, but the same can be said about air pillows. If there are large gaps and product inside the boxes can easily shift around then it doesn't matter what you use for packing material because it isn't helping.

If moving to paper allows them to pack boxes better, then I'm all for it. I've had such shotty packed packages from Amazon over all the years I have purchased stuff through them that I've pretty much swore off using Amazon a few years ago (they are my absolute last ditch resort if I can't find what I'm after somewhere else). If moving to paper helps them pack things better I may throw them a few extra orders here and there.

I'm sure it will also be a price point in saving money on their end is the main reason they're switching. Paper comes on rolls, just tear it off. Air cushion bags require machines to fill and seal them if you're not buying them already filled and sealed already. If you have machines they will break down and need to be repaired or replaced. Paper, just put it on a roller and replace the empty roll with a new one - no machine to maintaine.
Click to expand...

Agree nearly 100% but still think those plastic air bags would be cheaper as very little plastic , but probably cost to neutral
With my love of science scrunched brown paper is super strong vs compression.
You can fold a sheet 7 times or so with little or no air inside, but if you scrunch it into a ball, very hard to compressed further, no matter how hard you squeeze , and still has lots of air inside , Easy way for kids to protect eggs in the drop challenge. actually did this challenge at my primary school - maybe 1972 - so know sure how old challenge is - quick google
"The annual Egg Drop challenge was initiated in 1958, the year after Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, was launched, spurring the Space Race." could have been older
 
I have never in my life received and Amazon package with any form of protection, not even crumpled paper.

I have books ruined by crushed boxes that I've had to send back, had glass shipped from USA, all without protection other than the box.

scAmazon is more appropriate name.
 
Here in the UK it's been crumpled paper for as long as I can remember from Amazon. Sometimes when they play "let's see how large a box we can ship this tiny item in" there'll be 50ft of the stuff in a single box.You can tell who in the street has Prime based on the amount of brown mountains appear in the street the week after Prime Day.

 
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Although I have repeatedly complained via every avenue available, I still get the same smashed, crushed and flattened stuff in my monthly shipments EVERY FRIGGIN MONTH... the continue to put smaller items in a large box with very heavy stuff with ZERO packing materials or cushions of any kind....

Fortunately, most of the items have been things that were in their own fairly strong manufacture's packages, so their hasn't been any significant damage YET, but I know it will come sooner or later, at which point I will probably lose my prime membership after multiple instances of me screaming & yelling at the top of my lungs at multiple "member service agents"
 
dangh said:
That is an excellent move as those plastic pellets were just a non recyclable waste. Next step would be to actually use the right size of packages for given product.
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They haven't used plastic pellets in such a long time. This article is about ditching the air filled bags they put in much larger boxes with one small item in them. Now it's a small piece of paper flopping around in a box too big for the item in it.
 
Bobbydpue said:
They haven't used plastic pellets in such a long time. This article is about ditching the air filled bags they put in much larger boxes with one small item in them. Now it's a small piece of paper flopping around in a box too big for the item in it.
Click to expand...
I think it depends on your location. in UK I think I had a lot of those pelets in boxes just around last xmass. And yeah, box size is still an issue, weird, they can't solve this properly.
 
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