UK customers shopping with Amazon whose orders are shipped from Amazon’s fulfilment centres will no longer receive items packed with plastic air pillows.
This includes items sold directly by Amazon, and by third-party selling partners who ship their products using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). Instead of plastic air pillows, Amazon says the items will be packed with 100% recycled and 100% recyclable packing paper, known as dunnage, which is designed to prevent movement within boxes and keep items safe.
Amazon says this is the latest step it has taken to reduce single-use plastic packaging, following the move from single-use plastic delivery bags for Amazon-fulfilled deliveries to paper bags and cardboard envelopes in the UK, which was announced in March 2022.
The e-commerce seller also says it matches packaging size to products to use less material overall and increases the amount of recycled content that goes into making them.
Director of Customer Delivery Experience, Amazon, Olivier Pellegrini, said: “Packaging that is easy to recycle is important to customers and important to us. Ending the use of plastic air pillows is just another step towards packaging that can easily be added to our customers’ household recycling.”
Amazon is the co-founder of and the first signatory to The Climate Pledge, a commitment to reach net-zero carbon by 2040. As part of its commitment, Amazon says it is on a path to reaching 100% renewable energy across its operations by 2025 and has ordered more than 100,000 electric delivery vehicles, with thousands already making deliveries to customers in Europe.