Amazon claims it's committed to being a zero waste organisation, but behind the grandstanding and greenwashing is a business model built on greed – with people and the planet paying the ultimate price. ITV’s investigation found a leaked document that showed more than 130,000 items that were marked “destroy” in one week in April. The same document found that just 28,000 items in the same period were labelled as “donate”.
The stuff that Amazon is marking for destruction is not even single-use, a lot of it has never been used at all. According to one account from a previous employee, Dyson fans and hoovers as well as Apple Macbooks and iPads have been sent to be destroyed. Other items headed for the bin included unopened and unused face masks meant to keep people safe from Covid-19.
The pandemic has shone a light on the hardship faced by many families. Thousands of children don’t have proper learning equipment like laptops or computers, and just months ago this country was plunged into a crisis where we had a chronic shortage of PPE. What Amazon is doing is not just foolish, or bad for the environment, it’s downright immoral.
Amazon has no excuses for allowing this unimaginable waste to continue - our planet can’t afford it. Can you join us in pushing back at this senseless waste and sign this petition?