SUMNER, Wash. — At Amazon’s Packaging Innovation Lab south of Seattle, boxes are dropped from different heights, jiggled for hours to simulate truck transport, and crushed under weights designed to replicate the pressure of stacked cargo. 

The goal: to ensure that products arrive undamaged — without the benefit of plastics and extra bulky boxes.

The e-commerce giant says it’s working to phase out plastic from the envelopes, bags, boxes and cushioning it uses to ship everything from bobby pins to bicycles. A recent tour of the Sumner facility and an adjacent fulfillment center featured robotic assembly lines making paper bags and trimmed-down boxes to facilitate that transition.

Amazon says it favors paper because there’s better infrastructure in place for customers to easily recycle the material and for it to be turned back into usable items.

“We’re shifting towards all-paper packaging material,” confirmed John Sly, Amazon’s senior lab and field manager at the Sumner site.

An Amazon spokesperson wouldn’t commit to a target date, saying only that the company is working toward the goal and tracking progress in its annual sustainability reports. 

• Amazon said in its most recent report that it reduced its use of single-use plastic delivery packaging by 16.4% globally last year.
• In October 2024, the company announced that it had eliminated the inflated plastic pillows from packages worldwide, replacing them with crunched-up recycled paper for cushioning. 
• More than half of its North American fulfillment centers were weaned off all plastic shipping materials by 2024. As a result, 37% of shipments that year contained single-use plastic delivery packaging — a decrease from 65% the year before.

The shift follows lobbying by the nonprofit Oceana and some Amazon shareholders to reduce plastic use, and as Amazon pursues ambitious net zero climate emissions targets. 

But despite the packaging wins, the bigger picture reveals much harder challenges. Amazon reported a 6% increase in its carbon footprint for last year, driven by data center expansion. And while it’s deploying electric vans for last-mile deliveries, promises of faster shipping are pushing emissions up across the sector, according to new research. In response to the study, Amazon notes that its extensive network of warehouses reduces its impact and emissions per shipment declined from 2019 to last year.

Automating the push towards paper

A key strategy for making packaging more sustainable is incorporating robotics that speed and customize the process.

One solution is an automated system that folds lightweight boxes around individual items. It uses thinner, more sustainable corrugated paper than found in traditional boxes. It’s pliable enough to wrap around products as they move along a conveyor — cutting to size, folding and sealing without requiring added cushioning.

Another technology uses repurposed machines that formerly made plastic bags, swapping in paper. One of the upsides to the solution is fulfillment centers are already built to fit the devices, so the machines just need to be retrofit to handle and seal paper edges instead of plastic.

On a recent morning, Todd Grasser, an Amazon process assistant, was feeding in products for bagging that included a box of probiotic supplements and a Bluey character coloring set.

The device is able to bag up to 500 items an hour, Grasser said, but his fastest speed on the machine is just slightly lower. “Personally, I do about 475,” he said.

The automated packaging solutions are currently limited to single items, which can apply when someone’s order is sourced from different fulfillment centers or if it includes just one product.

The company is also partnering with manufacturers to ship items in their original packaging. That avoids, say, putting a boxed blender inside a bigger box when it doesn’t need additional protection. As part of that initiative, Amazon has worked with Proctor & Gamble to make boxed versions of Tide detergent and Playmobil sets that are offered in brown shipping boxes that can be flipped inside out after delivery to reveal colorful toy photos.

Moving to more sustainable packaging requires testing its properties to ensure that goods arrive to customers undamaged.

The shift means balancing multiple needs, Sly said, that include “prioritizing for protection and minimizing packaging material needed, while also still hitting the delivery speed that we promised.”

The company can move fast in adopting more sustainable packaging and it has in adopting paper bags and paper filler, “but we have to get the right solution,” Amazon spokesperson Saige Kolpack added. “There’s implications down the entire network that we have to consider.”

Editor’s note: Story updated to add a response from Amazon on the new research addressing emissions from faster shipping times.

Ridwell, the Seattle startup that collects plastic and other hard-to-recycle items from consumers, keeps growing its footprint across the U.S.

The company recently expanded beyond the home pickup bins where it got its start with a new mail-in service that has already attracted about 20,000 users in recent months.

It is also reeling in more investment. A new SEC filing reveals the company has raised $15 million in fresh cash. Ridwell CEO Ryan Metzger declined to comment on the filing.

Metzger, a former director at Madrona and Zulily, told GeekWire that the mail-in service has grown “remarkably,” helping Ridwell extend its reach to 130,000 customers in all 50 states.

Customers can recycle multi-layer plastic such as bags for chips or candy wrappers, as well as plastic film, which includes grocery bags and bubble wrap, by packing it all in a bag provided by Ridwell. They schedule a home pickup through Ridwell’s integration with the U.S. Postal Service and then track their garbage’s recycling journey online.

There’s no monthly subscription like there is with Ridwell bin pickups. Customers pay $30 to start and about $9 for each return, spaced out however often they need the service.

Metzger has been promoting the new offering at nearly 200 community meetups throughout the country. “It’s a great way to get the word out and really build adoption amongst people who are most passionate,” he said.

Ridwell’s traditional pickup service still operates across eight metro areas in seven states: Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota and Texas. Customers pay $20 for that monthly service in which plastics and other add-ons such as Styrofoam or batteries are collected by Ridwell drivers.

Metzger said that as adoption grows in a certain region, that region can be turned into a pickup area, with a Ridwell facility, drivers and other workers. The new funding will facilitate that growth. All of the materials from pickup and mail-in are routed to 10 Ridwell-run processing facilities around the country.

Ridwell, which employs about 250 people, sorts, bales, and ships materials such as multi-layer plastic to a variety of partners, who give the material a second life. For instance, Trex makes composite decking materials; Hydroblox makes water drainage material; and ByFusion makes construction-grade building blocks.

Metzger called the mail-in service’s integration with the Postal Service a unique user experience. Through the Ridwell website, customers can schedule a pickup for a carrier who will grab a bag of recycling during a typical mail drop.

Because the practice of recycling and whether it actually works or makes a difference environmentally has been called into question in recent years, Metzger said it’s important to show customers the journey of their materials.

“We try to do some of what e-commerce has built over decades, and bring that to the reverse side of things,” he said of Ridwell’s package tracking. “So when you give us stuff, you see where it goes, the fact that it actually made it there, and what it gets turned into.”

Metzger launched Ridwell in 2018 after he and his then-7-year-old son were trying to get rid of dead batteries and realized it wasn’t that easy.

During his talks with community members — from Port Townsend, Wash., to Concord, Mass. — Metzger likes to demonstrate the physical result of recycling, showing off a piece of Trex or Hydroblox.

“I can say, ‘Here’s all this stuff that you can put in that bag, and then here’s what it turns into,'” Metzger said. “There is a trust barrier that we’re overcoming, so it’s important to meet people and look at them face to face and show them what happens to it.”

Previously:

• Ridwell starts collecting more difficult types of plastic as recycling startup grows to seven states
• Behind the recycling scenes at Ridwell: Seattle startup growing as fast as piles of plastic and more