One wagon every 67 minutes! The report says Amazon dumps 23.5 million pounds of plastic waste into the sea each year

According to a new report by Oceana, by 2020, as more and more Americans turn to Amazon to shop during the coronavirus lockdown, the company has produced more plastic packaging waste than ever before: a total of 599 million pounds. Of that nearly 600 million pounds of plastic, Oceana estimates that "as many as 23.5 million pounds" have entered the world's oceans. This amounts to "dumping a truckload of plastic into the ocean every 67 minutes," the report said. Amazon disputed the report, saying the data was overrated "more than 300 percent."

Source: Business Insider

Oceana, which commissioned and released the report, is an international nonprofit organization "dedicated to the conservation and restoration of the world's oceans on a global scale."

According to the Plastic Waste Manufacturers Index, the vast majority of plastic entering the world's oceans comes from about 20 companies, including petrochemical companies such as ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical, but excluding Amazon.

The Plastic Waste Manufacturers Index states that the world's single-use plastics are mainly derived from companies that produce polymers used to make single-use plastics, rather than companies that use plastics for packaging.

An estimated 17.6 billion pounds of new plastic enter the world's oceans each year, and Amazon contributes 23.5 million pounds of that, a fraction of the total, oceana reports.

Amazon disputed the report in a statement sent to Business Insider.

"Their calculations are seriously flawed," the statement said. "They overestimate our plastic use by more than 300 percent."

According to a comprehensive assessment previously released by the United Nations Environment Programme, plastic accounts for 85% of marine litter, and the amount of plastic pollution flowing into the ocean will nearly triple by 2040, increasing by 23-37 million tons per year. This means that there are about 50 kilograms of plastic per meter of coastline around the world, which will have dire consequences for human health, the global economy, biodiversity and climate.

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