Environmentalists target Amazon France in ‘Black Friday’ protest

Team Udayavani, Nov 23, 2018, 7:18 PM IST

Clichy (France): Environmental activists dumped mounds of broken electronics, appliances and other waste at the French headquarters of Amazon on Friday, accusing the e-commerce giant of encouraging over-consumption while falling short on recycling.

Around 40 people converged on the company’s offices in the northern Paris suburb of Clichy to dump washing machines, old computer screens, tangles of power cords and other items to coincide with the busy “Black Friday” Thanksgiving holiday sale.

“We’re accusing Amazon in particular of violating the law by not putting in place a system for collecting electronics and recycling them properly. It’s a waste of resources,” Alma Dufour of Friends of the Earth told AFP.

“The business model of the second-largest retailer of electronics in France is based on runaway over-consumption,” Dufour said.

“They offer cut-rate prices and offer delivery that gets faster and faster, something that isn’t compatible with climate change targets,” she added.