Amazon is replacing plastic airbags with paper for wrapping deliveries in North America

The e-commerce giant said it is “continually inventing and thinking big to keep our packaging small” and wants to use as little packaging as possible to “avoid waste and prioritize recyclable materials.”

It’s part of Amazon’s strategy to reduce and avoid packaging, a multi-year initiative that aims to remove plastic shipping containers from its fulfillment centers across North America.

This will avoid almost 15 billion plastic airbags per year.

Pat Lindner, vice president of mechatronics and sustainable packaging, said: “I’m proud of Amazon’s cross-agency collaboration to positively impact customers’ delivery experiences with more recyclable materials. This is a great example of how we carefully test and scale new solutions to protect our customers’ experiences. We are working toward complete removal in North America by the end of the year and will continue to innovate, test and scale to prioritize recyclable materials at the curb.”