A 16-year-old environmental activist from has filed a petition against e-commerce platform Amazon and Flipkart for their excessive use of plastic in packaging.
According to a report by The Times of India, Aditya Dubey, a class 11 student of Modern School, Delhi has filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal for using an excessive amount of cardboard boxes, multiple layers of plastic sheets and bubble wraps used by e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart when delivering products to consumers.
Amazon packaging. Image: Reuters
Dubey reportedly filed the petition last week, asking for the tribunal to issue directions to these platforms to discontinue the excessive use of plastic.
He said that when these platforms send a product out for delivery, “even if the item is unbreakable, they put it in cardboard box double the size needed (for the product). Then typically there are three more layers of cover and even the invoice also comes in separate plastic. That’s really excessive.”
A hearing for the matter will reportedly be held next week.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that the Ld Tribunal sees merit in our claim and issues direction to @amazonIN @Flipkart to stop using #singleuseplastic .it’s not my case alone, i fight it as a representative of u and all those who care about our environment. https://t.co/BrsQx1FwWf
— Aditya Dubey (@AdityaDubey2003) October 10, 2019
TOIreached out to Flipkart and Amazon who said in their statement that they care for the environment and reducing single-use plastics was important to them. Flipkart said they plan to eliminate single-use plastics in their packaging by 2021.