Amazon generates a lot of waste. Precisely how much is a matter of debate. In 2021, the company says it used approximately 214 million pounds of single-use plastic in its packaging. The nonprofit ocean conservation company Oceana, on the other hand, estimated that figure at about ~700 million pounds. It's a huge chasm, but in any case, we're talking about a lot of garbage.
The company has been making progress on this front, while facing an ambitious Target net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Take, for example, its ongoing efforts to reduce package weight and replace plastics with paper products. Or, more recently, a new agreement with glacier.
This week, Amazon announces an investment through its Climate Pledge Fund and plans to deploy the Bay Area recycling robotics startup's technology to find out what happens to its packaging once it leaves consumers' hands.
“Our investment in Glacier is really about creating a circular economy supply chain,” Nick Ellis, director of Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, tells TechCrunch. “We want to do it sustainably, and that piece has always been kind of a black box. Once that package ends up at our customer's door, what happens to it? “Glacier finally allows us to see the last piece of the puzzle and understand that packaging ends up in a recycling or waste stream.”
Glacier's offering revolves around two main products. The first is a robot that is mainly used in recycling facilities to sort different materials. At a very high level, it is similar to the AMP Robotics offering. The second is an ai scanner. The second is the one that Amazon is testing.
Image credits: glacier
“What it allows both facilities and brands like Amazon to do is understand what's happening within their facilities or with their products, or in general in the ecosystem with plastics in general,” Glacier co-founder, tells TechCrunch, Areeb Malik. “We can install these cameras quite easily and widely to develop a picture of what is happening behind the scenes in our waste economy.”
Glacier says it is currently working with clients in 10 states. Forming partnerships with companies and government agencies is a big part of that rollout, according to co-founder and CEO Rebecca Hu. “We've been very concerted in making progress with brands and producers like Amazon and other Fortune 500 companies, as well as government agencies, whether it's municipal government, like the city of Phoenix, which is currently working with us to understand their recycling stream. . We also received a pretty large grant from the Michigan Department of Environment for future implementations of our technology. “There are a lot of things that are coalescing around the overall ecosystem.”
Amazon is co-leading the new $7.7 million round, along with New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Other investors include AlleyCorp, Overture VC and VSC Ventures.
