Almost all frequent travellers have a drawer of hotel toiletries collected during their stays. After all, those mini shampoos and lotions are an ideal take-home size.
However, the days of collecting them could soon be numbered due to a growing movement to ban single-use bottles in hotels and replace them with refillable multi-use products.
From January 2025, all hotels in New York – the entire state, not just the city – with 50 rooms or more will be prohibited from stocking mini toiletries. Properties with less than 50 rooms will follow suit from January 2026.
Mark Dorr, president of the New York State Hospitality and Tourism Association, says his group supports the incoming ban, while noting about 75% of hotels have already implemented reusable bottles.
Properties found to be flouting the ban will be fined, with all funds poured into an environmental protection fund used for conserving farmland, restoring historic sites and purchasing land to be turned into forest preserves.
South Korea has also approved a ban on these single-use bottles for hotels of 50 rooms or more, with the new rules expected to take effect within two years.
Perhaps the most sweeping action is still to come: the European Union is seeking to ban not mini toiletry bottles, along with thin plastic shopping bags, from 2030.
The move was recently approved by The European Parliament, although it’s yet to be signed off by EU member countries.
And with New York State and South Korea stepping up to the plate, not to mention the 27 countries of the EU, the burgeoning toiletry ban could soon start to snowball.
Locally, several Australian states have bans on single-use plastics such as bags and cutlery, but none cover hotel toiletries. Still, that hasn’t stopped many hotels swapping single use for larger pump bottles – and it’s a trend that’s only expected to grow.
Source: https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/new-york-europe-single-use-hotel-toiletry-ban
