In an effort to reduce its environmental impact, Marriott International, one of the world’s largest hotel chain, is working to eliminate all toiletries in small plastic bottles from its establishments by the end of 2020. In a recent press release, the company announced the move that would involve replacing single-use bottles of shampoo, conditioner and bath gel with larger pump bottles in over 7,000 hotels.

Five brands within the Marriott International portfolio will be affected by the policy – Courtyard by Marriott, SpringHill Suites, Residence Inn, Fairfield by Marriott and TownePlace Suites. The group’s hotels have more than 1m guests each night.

Upon full implementation of the programme across the world, it is expected to prevent about 500m containers annually going to landfills, accounting for a 30% reduction from current amenity plastics usage within the chain. Thirteen months after the company’s first global plastics-reduction initiative, which addressed disposable plastic straws, and which was met as of last month, Arne Sorenson, president and CEO of Marriott International noted “how important we believe it is to continuously find ways to reduce our hotels’ environmental impact. It’s a huge priority for us.”

The move comes in a time when hotel chains worldwide are implementing more “eco-friendly” policies. Last month, Holiday Inn as well as its parent company, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, promised to stop giving out toiletries by 2021, after announcing in 2018 that it had removed plastic straws from nearly 1,000 hotels in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa and planned to extend the measure to all its hotels (more than 5,400) by the end of 2019. InterContinental’s Voco hotels has suppliers providing duvets and pillows filled with 100% recycled materials, which the hotel group says equates to 150 plastic bottles per guest room diverted from landfill.

Hilton has made similar commitments, including eliminating plastic straws at its premises and removing plastic water bottles from its conference rooms. The hotel giant estimates that these actions will save roughly 5m plastic straws and up to 20m water bottles annually.

Disney has also pledged to reduce plastics in guest rooms by 80% as soon as possible, for example, by switching to refillable toiletries in its hotels and cruise ships. In the last couple of years, many hotels, such as Avani Hotels & Resorts, Iberostar and Thomas Cook, have implemented measures to reduce single-use plastics – see Plasteurope.com of 17.05.2018 and 19.11.2018.