U.S. PIRG Giving Tuesday

John,

We use plastic packaging for minutes, but it lasts forever.

Amazon ships over five billion packages annually, with a huge spike during the holidays. This season, our festive deliveries may also come with unnecessary -- and unwanted -- plastic.1

We should be able to complete our holiday shopping without the plastic waste. Tell Amazon: We want our packages without the plastic.

Tell Amazon: It's time to phase out plastic packaging

Amazon's plastic bags, padded mailers and plastic film are adding up. In 2022 alone, Amazon's U.S. shipments resulted in 208 million pounds of plastic packaging waste. This is equal to the weight of nearly 14,000 large African elephants.2

The sheer volume of Amazon's plastic packaging is a problem, but so, too, is its durability. Plastic lasts for hundreds of years and persists as litter in our parks, playgrounds and waterways.3 It also breaks down into microplastics as it slowly degrades, and these microplastics are finding their way into our bodies and threatening our health.4

Urge Amazon to lead the charge and eliminate unnecessary plastic packaging.

When it comes to reducing plastic waste, Amazon can continue to do what's right. After we helped deliver 138,000 petitions, Amazon phased out plastic air pillows.5 And amid new rules in the European Union, Amazon replaced its blue and white plastic mailers with alternatives made from paper and cardboard.6

If Amazon can phase out single-use plastic packaging in Europe, they can do the same in the U.S. And when they do, we can complete our holiday shopping without all that unwanted plastic.

Tell Amazon to eliminate unnecessary plastic packaging from its U.S. shipments today.

Thank you,

Faye Park
President

1. Chris Morris, "Amazon is set to deliver 5.9 billion packages this year--more than UPS or FedEx in a big reversal," Fortune, last accessed Nov. 2, 2025.
2. Oliver Milman, "Amazon increased US plastic packaging despite global phase-out, report says," The Guardian, April 4, 2024.
3. "In Images: Plastic is Forever," United Nations Exhibits, last accessed Nov. 3, 2025.
4. "Here's how microplastics are harming our health," PIRG, Aug. 27, 2024.
5. Jenn Engstrom and Celeste Meiffren-Swango, "Amazon just took another big step toward reducing its plastic waste. But the job's not done." PIRG, June 30, 2024.
6. Oliver Milman, "Amazon increased US plastic packaging despite global phase-out, report says," The Guardian, April 4, 2024.


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