How to Reduce Packaging for Amazon Packages

Every year in Italy there are over 200 million parcels, with their packaging, shipped and delivered through the Amazon platform: they account for approximately 20 percent of all parcel shipments, and they represent an enormous waste as the packaging is often useless while it always becomes bulky waste..

But more than to complain of Amazon, which means barking at the moon, and its unscrupulous dominant position in the online shopping market, we could begin to take simple but very useful steps to reduce the waste of this avalanche of cardboard, paper and plastic.

Packaging without Amazon box

Of the millions of items on sale on Amazon, many may arrive in our homes without the traditional box bearing the American giant's logo.

There is an option (Ship in manufacturer's packaging) which allows the purchase in its original packaging and without the addition of the Amazon box, a choice on which the very clever rulers of the online market have even built a marketing campaign, complete with a promotional video entitled Less packaging, more smiles, as if the packaging was the customers' work and not Amazon's. And there is also an Amazon program (“Frustration-Free Packaging”), with which the product, at the customer's request, arrives in the manufacturer's packaging, without additional packaging from Amazon.

The option is not available for any product, but it is easier to find for books, DVDs, games, toys or small non-fragile items.

The alternative to Amazon pickup points

No one can deny that home delivery is a great convenience. But there are also quite frequent circumstances, such as the lack of a concierge, that make deliveries problematic, resulting in a waste of time and money to collect the purchased product. Instead, it might be convenient and practical to go to the Amazon pickup points, physical places where you can Pick up, return, or ship Amazon packages without having to receive them directly at home. Packaging is definitely reduced.

Ship multiple products together

Anyone who uses the Amazon platform quickly becomes "addicted" to it. They simply multiply their purchases with online clicks: so why not use the function? Send everything together which allows you to significantly reduce the number of packages needed to package the purchased products?

Complain to Amazon

Don't be lazy, and since Amazon always wants to improve its relationship with its customers (to increase sales volumes through its platform), make full use of the "Problem with order" function, leave your feedback (as requested by the platform itself) and report Amazon's excessive use of packaging. The more we speak up, the more likely we are that Amazon will listen to us and reduce packaging..

Don't just buy from Amazon

Finally, the most radical choice, but also the most effective and sensible if you really want to contribute to the reduction of packaging in terms of sustainability: do not always buy everything through Amazon and rediscover the vital function of neighborhood shops, which the American platform is literally decimating.

Read also:

• How can packaging be reduced?
• Organic fruits and vegetables sold in plastic packaging. But what's the point? Just to raise the price?
• Rotoprint, the Milan-based company that gives packaging a "new lease of life" and reduces waste (photo)