They’re a common sight in Amazon packaging: plastic air pillows designed to keep products safe in transit, but billions of them end up in landfills.
Now, under pressure from environmentalists to reduce its use of plastic packaging, the world’s largest online retailer is replacing all of its fluffy plastic pillows with recycled paper filling.
Amazon said the move would prevent nearly 15 billion air pillows from being used in North America each year. The Seattle-based retail giant said in a press release Thursday that this is its “largest plastic packaging reduction effort” to date.
It’s just one way the company is responding to outcry from people and environmental groups over retailers’ use of plastic packaging, especially as online shopping continues to surge.
Marine conservation group Oceana, which has long been at odds with Amazon over its use of plastic, called the move “good news for the ocean and the company’s customers.” But it called for further reductions in single-use packaging, such as the padded plastic envelopes that Amazon continues to use.
The pillows are made from plastic film, which scientists have found to be the most common form of plastic waste in oceans and on the seafloor near shores. Plastic film can be fatal to wildlife such as sea turtles and seabirds. Unlike paper alternatives, plastic film generally cannot be composted or recycled in curbside programs.
A recent Oceana report found that protective packaging such as air pillows accounted for more than a third of global e-commerce packaging by weight.
Thursday’s announcement covers the United States, Amazon’s largest market, as well as Canada and Mexico, which together account for more than 70% of the retailer’s global sales. Amazon said it has replaced about 95% of plastic pillows in these markets with paper pillows and is committed to completely eliminating the use of paper pillows by the end of this year.
Amazon said it has phased out the use of plastic air pillows in Australia and almost all single-use plastic packaging in India and across Europe. But these changes have been slower to come in other parts of the world. Amazon reports that by 2022, global plastic packaging use will decrease by nearly 12% compared with the previous year.
Environmental and consumer groups have been working on multiple fronts to stem the tide of plastic packaging waste. Earlier this year, several groups pushed for a bill in New York state that would reduce the use of plastic packaging by 50% within 12 years by requiring manufacturers to find more sustainable options or pay for them.
The bill, which would also ban some toxic chemicals currently used in packaging such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, vinyl chloride and formaldehyde, passed the state Senate but did not come up for a vote in the Assembly. California, Oregon, Maine and Colorado have passed similar legislation.
Of course, there’s the thorny question: What to do with all the extra paper Amazon will use?
Paper is recyclable and biodegradable, an improvement over plastic. Still, the climate impact of paper can vary widely depending on the ingredients used in the pulp, according to a 2021 United Nations report comparing single-use plastics to other forms of packaging.
If paper bags end up in landfills, they could contribute to global warming methane pollution as they biodegrade. Paper, on the other hand, is more likely to be actually recycled. If plastic bags end up incinerated, they can release toxic chemicals.
Amazon said it is moving ahead with a multi-year effort to eliminate all plastic delivery packaging from its North American shipping centers. One center in Ohio has gone completely plastic-free, according to the company.
Any additional good news for shoppers? Amazon said its engineers tested the paper’s effectiveness at protecting products during shipping and found that the paper was as good or better than plastic pillows.
