By Sydney Manning
Staff Writer
As a company, Amazon has decided to invest $10 million dollars into a fund called the Closed Loop Fund. This fund invests in projects that reduce waste in landfills, programs for recycling, and sustainable goods. Investments for these projects are made from the fund through venture capital and funds for impact investment.
Other companies, such as Coca Cola Co., and Unilever have also invested in the Closed Loop Fund.
Along with this investment, Amazon also hopes to create curbside recycling initiatives for about three million homes in America by 2028, while also hoping to divert one million tons of recyclables from landfills.
Plastic, as most know, is very bad for the environment. According to National Geographic, back in 2015, it was estimated that there was 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean.
From the 5.25 trillion, 269,000 tons of that plastic float at the surface, “while some four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer litter the deep sea.”
If you have ever gotten a package from Amazon, you know how much waste is generated from the one shipment alone.
For this fall semester, I ordered my most of my textbooks on Amazon. It shocked me that most of the books came in separate packaging, usually in the form of a large blue and white plastic envelope. I believe that Amazon contributes a lot of waste, by way of their packaging.
One order of books, or any products, most of the time come from the same place, therefore there is no need for multiple shipments-when everything can be made in the same shipment.
According to Linkedin, there was, “…a report released by Sanford C. Bernstein, Amazon ships an average of 608 million packages each year, which equates to an estimated 1.6 million packages a day.”
This is a high volume of packages that Amazon ships. Amazon is not the only company that ships their products to customers. This is one company alone that sends, “…an average of 608 million packages each year.”
Imagine if the products in these packages were all shipped with plastic packaging. That is 608 million pieces of plastic circulating the Earth. 608 million is roughly double the population of the United States.
Most people may think that this is a great thing that Amazon is doing. They are trying to save the environment, and are trying to work to make it better. Even though most people may agree with what they are doing, there are others who do not.
Waste management facilities are just one group, who may not be on the same side of Amazon.
Since they are the operators of landfills, and the alternative to recycling, is paying them to take your waste away, they have a financial reason for being against the good that Amazon is trying to do.
Having a big company like Amazon, take steps to reduce plastic in landfills is amazing. Amazon has a large influence in the business world, and in the world in general- so having them make a decision like this is huge.
This sets the tone for other companies to follow in their footsteps. If only a few of the worlds largest companies made the decision Amazon made, the amount of plastic waste from packaging would be greatly reduced.
Since Amazon is taking steps to help save the environment, instead of hurt it, this investment should be seen as a great opportunity to help create a better, healthy living environment.
