Amazon nonetheless has a severe plastic waste downside within the US

Regardless of making pledges to chop down on plastic packaging, a brand new report from the nonprofit conservation group Oceana estimates that Amazon’s plastic waste has continued to develop within the US.

The corporate created 208 million kilos of plastic waste from its packaging within the US in 2022 alone, which Oceana says is sufficient trash to circle Earth greater than 200 occasions within the type of plastic air pillows. That’s an almost 10 % soar from the quantity of plastic waste it generated the yr earlier than, in accordance with the report.

The US is a worrying outlier for Amazon, Oceana says. Globally, the e-commerce big says that it decreased its use of plastic packaging 11.6 % in 2022 in comparison with the prior yr. However the US is the corporate’s greatest market, and Oceana argues it’s the place Amazon must make much more progress.

“Why are U.S. clients being left behind?” Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vp for strategic initiatives, mentioned in an emailed press launch.

There’s not a lot transparency on how a lot plastic waste Amazon pumps out from place to put. Its newest sustainability report, which covers 2022, doesn’t break the information down by nation. It additionally doesn’t report on all of the plastic waste generated by orders fulfilled by third-party sellers. So Oceana relied on market information from corporations Mordor Intelligence and Euromonitor to conduct its evaluation, after which made changes based mostly on public statements Amazon has made about new measures meant to cut back waste.

In an electronic mail to The Verge, Amazon vp of mechatronics and sustainable packaging Pat Lindner known as Oceana’s evaluation a “deceptive report with exaggerated and inaccurate details about our plastic packaging” and pointed to the corporate’s “multi-year effort to eradicate plastic supply packaging from our US automated success facilities.”

Plastic movie baggage used for packaging typically aren’t accepted in curbside recycling applications. As a result of any such plastic is trickier to rehash than bottles, customers who need to steer it away from landfills and incinerators would wish to take it to designated drop-off places within the US.

In July of final yr, Amazon appeared to make a imprecise dedication to ditch a few of its iconic plastic packaging altogether. “We’re phasing out padded baggage containing plastics in favor of recyclable alternate options,” the corporate mentioned in its sustainability report on the time. However it didn’t set a timeline for when that may occur.

Oceana desires to see the corporate part out plastic packaging in its residence base, the US. It’s additionally calling on Amazon to shrink the overall quantity of plastic packaging it makes use of by a minimal of one-third by the top of the last decade.