Ecommerce giant Flipkart eliminates single-use plastic in packaging

The country’s leading ecommerce marketplace Flipkart has eliminated all single-use plastic packaging used across its fulfilment centres in India delivering on its public commitment to move to plastic-free packaging in its own supply chain by 2021.

A statement from the company said this has been achieved across more than 70 of its facilities spread across the country by introducing scalable sustainable alternatives such as eco-friendly paper shreds, replacing poly pouches with recycled paper bags, replacing bubble wraps with carton waste shredded material, and 2 Ply roll to name a few.

Flipkart noted that it is now fully compliant with all EPR regulations, and through its network of recyclers, the equivalent quantity of single-use plastic going to consumers is fully recycled.

Having achieved this milestone, Flipkart is now actively working with its seller partners who fulfill customer orders directly from their locations to educate them and enable them to move towards alternative materials.

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Furthermore, Flipkart is actively working with the ecosystem to understand how it can best implement other initiatives to create a more circular economy for plastics so that the entire ecosystem can move towards a more sustainable future.

Flipkart has already achieved a 27 percent reduction in the use of single-use plastic packaging in its seller fulfilments.

Commenting on these developments, Hemant Badri, Senior Vice-President and Head of Supply Chain, Flipkart, said,

“At Flipkart, we place great emphasis on sustainable and responsible business practices. Moving towards 100 percent single-use plastic elimination is one of the significant steps we have taken towards fulfilling our commitment to creating a sustainable ecosystem. We achieved this while navigating a tough year impacted by COVID-19, and are proud that our teams kept the priorities in line.”

Some of the other key initiatives by Flipkart include ‘Ecommerce ready packaging’, where Flipkart has been able to ship close to 15 percent of products without adding a secondary layer of packaging.

Flipkart said its ambition is to reduce the need for an outer layer by working with brands across apparel, electronics, and home furnishings to ship their products in the original manufacturer/brand packaging.

Flipkart is also working towards making sure the packaging used does not cause any deforestation by scaling packaging from recycled and alternative materials.

In order to transition towards a low-carbon economy, Flipkart has also committed to a 100 percent transition to electric vehicles in its city logistics network by 2030.