Hotels Continue to Ditch Disposable Toiletries

Accor S.A. joins the list of global hotel chains that will no longer offer travel-sized toiletries for guests in a shift toward more sustainable operations.

Accor announced it will replace individual plastic tubes of shampoo, conditioner and bath gel with either wall dispensers or glass, bulk-sized toiletries in its 340,000 guest rooms across the world by the end of this year, CNN reports. The global chain has nearly 5,000 properties and 40 brands including Ibis, Novotel, the Fairmont, and Mondrian.

Eliminating single-use plastics is part of Accor’s larger strategic plan to reduce environmental impacts and strengthen efforts “to combat plastic pollution of the world’s oceans and other natural environments,” the company announced.

Those efforts also include replacing other plastic items such as keycards, laundry bags, and cups with products made from alternative materials. Nearly all of Accor’s hotels have already eliminated plastic straws and coffee stirrers.

Last year Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, and International Hotels Group, owner of Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, announced similar environmental initiatives. Marriott, the world’s largest hotel chain, plans to remove plastic bottles from its hotel rooms worldwide by December 2020 and replace them with wall-mounted dispensers in lower-priced hotels and untethered, larger bottles in high-end hotels.

Sports facilities are joining the ranks of hotels in their shift away from single-use plastics. Last week, it was reported that Centerplate Inc., a division of Sodexo, reached an agreement with Ball Corp. and Anheuser-Busch InBev to use infinitely recyclable aluminum cups at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, the site of Super Bowl LIV.

SC Johnson, parent company of SC Johnson Professional, has announced a strategic partnership with MLB’s Milwaukee Brewers that allows fans attending Brewers home games at Miller Park to dispose of plastic drink cups branded with the SC Johnson logo in specially designed receptacles. SC Johnson will then collect the discarded cups and use the recycled plastic to manufacturer bottles for its Scrubbing Bubbles® product line.