While plastic bags of all kinds are now a rarity on most shopping streets, they continue to play an important role behind the scenes, especially in online retail. A circumstance that is said to have led to a dispute between the Spanish fashion group Inditex and the Berlin online retailer Zalando.
Unbeknownst to many customers, most items of clothing are still transported in a protective disposable plastic bag – a so-called polybag – at least on the way from the factories to the retailers. Once there, the plastic, which is intended to protect against dirt and damage, is often removed and makes way for an “environmentally friendly” alternative, such as recycled paper or cardboard, before it is shipped to customers.
What are polybags?
A 2019 study by industry organization Fashion For Good defines polybags as a clear plastic bag, typically made of low-density polyethylene (LDPE), that holds a garment during transport from production facilities to distribution centers and on to retail stores and customers’ homes :protects the inside from dirt, moisture and damage. According to the report, carbon pollution from packaging and distribution as part of the fashion industry’s overall value chain is generally relatively low, but apparel companies pursuing zero waste goals are increasingly finding that a significant portion of waste comes from plastic film and polybags consists.
This is roughly how the process works at Inditex. In 2019, the Spanish fashion group set itself the goal of phasing out deliveries in single-use plastic packaging to customers by the end of the 2023 financial year. The news magazine Bloomberg quotes a spokesman for Inditex as saying that this goal has been 95 percent achieved at group level, but Zalando of all companies is now set to thwart the Spanish group’s plans. Zalando refuses to remove the said polybags from Inditex products from the brands Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Bershka and Pull & Bear before shipping them to the end customers, even after Inditex’s request.
Shipping despite individual packaging?
Once I asked the Berlin online retailer, the situation sounds a little different, because Zalando confirms that it ships the products with their polybags, but the reasons seem obvious.
On the one hand, it is part of Zalando’s delivery conditions that partners – including Inditex – deliver every product “retail ready”. This means that the products must be delivered to the Zalando logistics centers with suitable individual packaging so that they can be shipped to customers. On the other hand, an internal assessment showed that it was not advantageous to initially use polybags in internal processes and then remove them shortly before shipping to customers, said a Zalando spokesman when asked by FashionUnited. In addition, Zalando also refers to studies that show that removing polybags would increase the risk of items being so badly damaged during delivery that they can no longer be resold – which is the least sustainable option.
However, Zalando also admits that single-use plastic is a major hurdle for sustainability. When it comes to the use of polybags, the company is in constant communication with its partners in order to evaluate the most sustainable long-term solutions for all sides. Inditex is not mentioned by name by Zalando, but they recognize the different points of view on this issue and are striving to find common ground. They are also testing alternatives internally, such as a special folding technique for their own brands and a smaller thickness of plastic bags, and have already reduced their dependence on single-use plastic in recent years.
Inditex did not want to comment on this when asked by FashionUnited.