Amazon produces a lot of garbage. Exactly how much is up for debate. In 2021, the company says it used about 214 million kilograms of single-use plastic in its packaging. Ocean conservation nonprofit Oceana, on the other hand, put the figure at about ~£700 million. That’s a huge gap, but in any case, we’re talking about a lot of garbage.
The company has made strides on this front as it looks into the eyes of an aspirant Net zero carbon target for 2040. Take for example its ongoing efforts to reduce packaging weight and replace plastics with paper products. Or, more recently, a new deal with Glacier.
This week, Amazon is announcing an investment through its Climate Pledge Fund and plans to apply the Bay Area robotics recycling 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 at Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, tells TechCrunch. “We want to do this in a sustainable way and that part has always been a bit of a black box. Once that package arrives at our customer’s doorstep, what happens to it? Glacier finally allows us to see that last piece of the puzzle and understand that packaging ends up in a recycling stream or a waste stream.”
Glacier’s offering revolves around two core products. The first is a robot mainly used in recycling facilities to sort various materials. At a very high level, it is similar to AMP Robotics’ offering. The second is an AI scanner. The second is the one piloted by Amazon.
Image Credits: Glacier
“What that allows both facilities and brands like Amazon to do is understand what’s going on inside their facilities or with their products — or in the plastic ecosystem in general,” Glacier co-founder Areeb tells TechCrunch Malik. “We can deploy these cameras very easily and widely enough to develop a picture of what’s going on behind the scenes in our waste economy.”
Glacier says it currently works with customers in 10 states. Forging partnerships with companies and government agencies is a big part of that growth, according to co-founder and CEO Rebecca Hu. “We’re very attuned to making inroads with brands and manufacturers like Amazon and other Fortune 500 companies, as well as government entities, whether it’s a municipal government like the city of Phoenix, which is currently working with us to understand recycling stream. We also received a fairly significant grant from the Michigan Department of Environment to further develop our technology. There’s a lot that comes together 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.
