Amazon is a major player in the retail world, but it also generates a significant amount of waste. There has been much debate about the exact amount of trash the company produces, with estimates varying from 214 million pounds to a whopping ~700 million pounds of single-use plastic packaging used in 2021 alone. No matter how you look at it, that’s a lot of waste.
Despite this, Amazon has taken steps to address this issue as it strives towards its bold goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. These efforts include reducing package weights and increasing the use of paper products instead of plastic. And now, the company is taking a new step towards sustainability through an investment in Glacier, a recycling robotics startup based in the Bay Area.
Nick Ellis, principal at Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, explains the company’s decision to partner with Glacier: “Our investment in Glacier is really about creating a circular economy supply chain. We want to do that sustainably, and that piece has always been a bit of a black box. Once that package ends up at our customer’s doorstep, what happens to it? Glacier finally allows us to see that last piece of the puzzle and understand if that packaging is ending up in a recycling stream or a waste stream.”
Glacier offers two main products: a robot that helps sort through different materials in recycling facilities, and an AI scanner, which is the product that Amazon is currently piloting. Co-founder Areeb Malik explains, “What it allows both facilities and brands like Amazon to do is understand what’s happening inside their facility or with their products – or generally in the ecosystem with plastics at large. We can install these cameras pretty easily and pretty broadly to develop a picture of what’s happening behind the scenes at our waste economy.”
Currently, Glacier is working with customers in 10 states and has formed partnerships with companies and government agencies. Co-founder and CEO Rebecca Hu states, “We’ve been very concerted in making inroads with brands and producers like Amazon and other Fortune 500 companies, as well as government agencies. We’ve also received a pretty significant grant from the Michigan Department of Environment for further deployments of our technology. There’s a lot coalescing around the overall ecosystem.”
Amazon, along with New Enterprise Associates (NEA), is co-leading a new $7.7 million round of funding for Glacier, with other investors including AlleyCorp, Overture VC, and VSC Ventures. With this investment and partnership, Amazon continues to take steps towards a more sustainable future.
