Stop Recycling Amazon Plastic Packaging
Recycling can be quite challenging – it’s never as easy as throwing plastic in the plastic recycling bin. For example, most roadside recycling programs do not accept plastic bags.
And now you have one more thing to avoid recycling: Amazon plastic packaging.
Amazon’s new, non-recyclable plastic postal shippers are clogging up some recycling facilities in the US, and consumers are throwing them in the trash bin along with other plastics, according to a Washington Post report.
“This Amazon packaging suffers from the same problems as the plastic bags that resist sorting in our recycling system and end up in our machines,” Lisa Sepanski, King County Solid Waste Project Manager, told the Washington Post. “It takes work to cut them out. They have to stop the cars. “
The paper labels on mail senders are also non-recyclable, further complicating the problem.
Over the past year, Amazon has begun shipping some of its bags in plastic mail to customers around the world as an alternative to its cardboard box. This was intended to save space on trucks and airplanes (and this plastic in general reduces greenhouse gas emissions, according to some experts ).
However, plastic has created a different problem: a large pile of non-recyclable plastic that has to be dealt with ends up in our landfills (although Amazon plans to launch a fully recyclable paper mailing list at an unknown time).
So what exactly do you do with Amazon’s plastic mailers? Just throw them in the trash to avoid contaminating recyclable materials and stopping your equipment. The How2Recycle Locator can help you find the nearest store ready to accept packaging (just in case, call to make sure the material is accepted).
If not, reuse the shipping and return packaging.