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Amazon render a tidy sum of trash . Precisely how much is a topic of some debate . In 2021 , the company tell it used 214 million or so pounds of exclusive - exercise plastic in its packaging . Nonprofit ocean preservation firm Oceana , on the other hand , put that figure at approximately~700 million pounds . That ’s a huge disconnect , but in either casing , we ’re talking about a lot of trash .
The troupe has been making strides on this front , as it stares down the face of an ambitious2040 nett - zero carbon discharge finish . Take for example , its ongoing travail to reduce package weight and replace plastics with paper product . Or , more of late , a novel deal withGlacier .
This week , Amazon is announcing an investment through its Climate Pledge Fund and plans to implement the Bay Area recycling robotics startup ’s engineering science to find out what happens to its packaging once it leaves consumer ’ hands .
“ Our investment funds in Glacier is really about make a orbitual economic system supply concatenation , ” Nick Ellis , school principal at Amazon ’s Climate Pledge Fund , tells TechCrunch . “ We desire to do that sustainably , and that piece has always been a bit of a black box . Once that package terminate up at our client ’s doorsill , what happens to it ? Glacier finally appropriate us to see that last piece of the teaser and understand is that packaging stop up in a recycling current or a waste stream . ”
Glacier ’s offer revolves around two chief products . The first is a automaton that is chiefly deployed in recycling facilities to sort through dissimilar material . On a very high level , it ’s like to AMP Robotics ’ offering . The second is an AI scanner . The second is the one Amazon is piloting .
“ What it allow both facilities and brands like Amazon to do is interpret what ’s happening inside their deftness or with their products — or generally in the ecosystem with plastics at enceinte , ” Glacier Colorado - founder Areeb Malik tells TechCrunch . “ We can install these cameras reasonably easily and pretty broadly to develop a picture of what ’s happening behind the view at our waste economy . ”
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Glacier say it ’s presently working with client in 10 Department of State . shape partnership with fellowship and government agencies is a big part of that deployment , allot to co - founder and CEO Rebecca Hu . “ We ’ve been very concerted in make inroads with steel and producer like Amazon and other Fortune 500 company , as well as government agencies , whether that be the municipal government , like the City of Phoenix , which is currently act upon with us to understand its recycling watercourse . We ’ve also received a pretty pregnant grant from the Michigan Department of Environment for further deployment of our technology . There ’s a bunch coalescing around the overall ecosystem . ”
Amazon is a co - loss leader of the young $ 7.7 million round , along with New Enterprise Associates ( NEA ) . Other investors include , AlleyCorp , Overture VC and VSC Ventures .
