Washington, D.C. – The global Plastic Pollution Coalition has released a new petition demanding Amazon.com reduce their plastic footprint on the earth. The campaign is timed with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two of Amazon’s biggest money-making days of the year.
“If you are one of Amazon’s 100 million+ customers, you have seen the e-commerce giant’s plastic problem,” reads the petition copy, which has been signed by more than 3,000 people in advance of Black Friday. “From polystyrene packing peanuts to non-recyclable bubble wrap to plastic-wrapped pouches of air, nearly every Amazon order arrives buried in heaps of wasteful single-use plastic packaging. All of this plastic packaging is designed to be used once and will plague our planet for generations to come.”
According to Plastic Pollution Coalition, plastic pollutes across its lifecycle, from extraction to use and disposal. More than 8 million metric tons of plastic pollution ends up in our oceans each year, wreaking havoc on ecosystems. Studies show that 91 percent of plastic is not recycled.
“Plastic pollution poses a very serious threat to our environment and our health,” said Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator and founder of Beyond Plastics, a member of Plastic Pollution Coalition. “And yet, Amazon and other online consumer companies are turning a blind eye and making the problem much worse, sending out millions of packages entombed in plastic that cannot be reused or recycled. Amazon and other companies need to embrace reusable packaging and they need to make that shift fast.”
“As Amazon’s share of the ecommerce market steadily grows, the tidal wave of pointless plastic packaging polluting our planet will only continue to increase exponentially,” said Dianna Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO of Plastic Pollution Coalition. “Join us in challenging Amazon to stop polluting the planet with single-use plastic today.”
I am working on wrapping up a project for my environmental science class, I was wondering if there was an author that I could create for this article?
I am disappointed with the excess of plastic/aluminum bags that are not recyclable. These bags are used when having groceries delivered to our home. Whole Foods is supposed to be an environmentally focused grocery store, at least it was that way prior to it being purchased by Amazon. An idea, to prevent this type of environmental problem, could be for the containers that are used to keep perishable groceries cool, to not be disposable, such as a cooler. These coolers that could be returned to whole foods either by leaving it where the same driver who drops off the groceries takes it back, or by dropping it off at the Whole Foods store. Also, a refundable deposit for the coolers could be charged. Another idea is for Whole Foods to charge a delivery fee that could pay the salary of people used to disinfect the coolers.
Definitely going to send this petition around. Amazon has no sense of responsibility for the pollution our addiction to their service creates. We are ALL responsible. I for one have stopped ordering books from Amazon and now am a faithful customer at our local bookstore, which I am grateful is still in healthy existence. Amazon sends books in plastic bubble wrap nine times out of ten. Books! Not exactly breakable. We have to put pressure on them to change ASAP their plastic footprint.