Amazon is taking a step towards more sustainable grocery delivery by piloting new bio-based bags in Valencia, Spain. The bags, made from European-produced vegetable materials like corn starch and vegetable oils, are designed to be both food-safe and protect against the elements.
Collaborative Effort
The project is a collaboration between Amazon and Novamont, an Italian company specializing in bio-based materials and a part of Versalis (Eni), with support from Amazon’s materials scientists. These initial trials are focused on Amazon Fresh orders.
Key Features
These new bags are designed to be durable, food-safe, and weather-resistant. The material, known as Mater-biTM, offers a potential alternative to fossil-based plastics used by food retailers. They also have the benefit of being biodegradable, mitigating the creation of microplastics.
“Our new Amazon Fresh bio-based bags provide protection against spills and condensation to keep grocery orders safe for our customers, and at the same time are less impactful for the planet because they are made from renewable, food safe materials derived from plants, like corn starch and vegetable oils,” explained Alan Jacobsen, Amazon’s Materials & Energy Sciences Director. “Unlike most petroleum-based plastic bags, these materials have the potential to be more efficiently recycled, while also being able to naturally degrade in a composting environment.”
The biodegradable bags can currently be mechanically recycled, where local partners convert them into pellets to be used by Novamont to create new bags.
“Experimenting with Amazon is an exceptional opportunity to showcase packaging solutions made from our family of Mater-Bi materials, all of which are biodegradable and compostable, and wholly or partly derived from biomass,” said Catia Bastioli, CEO of Novamont (Versalis, Eni). “This is a unique opportunity to test their effectiveness and multiple recycling options in terms of resource regeneration and certified environmental performance.”
Customer Satisfaction
Early customer feedback has been positive. In Valencia, where the trial is underway, 75% of customers who have received the bio-based bags expressed satisfaction, citing the bags’ biodegradability, bio-based composition, and reusability.
Future Plans
Amazon plans to analyze the trial results to evaluate the feasibility of a broader implementation of these new bio-based bags.
‘Closing the Loop’ Initiative
In addition to the Valencia pilot, Amazon is also working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s BOTTLE Consortium, led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), to develop more advanced methods for recycling bio-based and biodegradable materials.
Jacobsen added, “This process breaks down bio-based, biodegradable materials into basic building blocks that can be repolymerised back into new materials without degrading the material properties. Instead of only having composting as an end-of-life solution for these materials, this new process enables biodegradable plastics to be efficiently recycled, keeping these materials in use and reducing the need for additional raw materials.”
The start-up EsterCycle, which uses technology developed by NREL and Amazon, is working to scale the new technology beyond the lab, to enable bio-based plastics to be more widely recycled.
Broader Impact
The development of next-generation bio-based and biodegradable materials in the packaging sector, especially in the food and grocery industry, can facilitate a swifter transition to a circular economy, leading to significant reductions in plastic waste.
Amazon and Novamont are also testing other food-safe bio-based solutions, like containers for yoghurt, coffee pods, and meat, which is co-financed by Circular Biobased Europe.
Amazon’s Broader Commitment
Beyond the new bag initiative, Amazon is committed to minimizing packaging. Ships In Product Packaging, a program in Europe, has allowed for over 1 billion shipments to avoid any added delivery packaging since 2019. Since 2015, packaging reduction programs have avoided the use of over 3 million metric tons of packaging materials. When extra packaging is necessary, Amazon uses easily recyclable, paper-based packaging in all of its European delivery operations – for both items sold directly and by third-party sellers using Fulfillment by Amazon.
