New York bans small shampoo, body lotion bottles from hotels
Those mini toiletries could soon be a thing of the past...
By Chris Ashton, July 11 2024
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.
Mini toiletries like these may soon be relics of the past.
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.
Refillable multi-use products like these are becoming the new norm.
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.
Executive Traveller has approached the Australian Hotels Association for comment and current statistics on single-use bottles.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
25 Sep 2012
Total posts 21
These mini bottles are ideal as souvenirs to take home for family and friends or ideal to reuse on future trips! Always a bit of a let down when you stay at a higher end '5 star' hotel only to find pump bottles in the bathroom.
10 Apr 2020
Total posts 15
Shanghai has the ban already, they state it in the description of the hotel
13 Apr 2017
Total posts 7
If this is what it takes to get liquid hand soap at bathroom sinks in hotel rooms so I don't have to being my own - bring it on!
Cathay Pacific - The Marco Polo Club
20 Jun 2013
Total posts 62
More Hotels also need to "monetise" these larger toiletry items and make these and related Hotel items available for purchase, great momentos I recall Langham hotels "Scent of Langham" being available great to gift and take home.
23 Sep 2023
Total posts 11
And I just returned from the Hunter Valley where they were doing exactly that, you could buy the full range of in room products in full size packs.
28 Sep 2022
Total posts 16
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I hate those stupid little bottles of soap and shampoo - so inconvenient to use and arbitrarily sized. I much prefer the large cylinders full of the stuff - that way it will never run out in a 24h period, and it's much easier to use.
Qantas
10 Sep 2013
Total posts 5
Phew - After this and banning plastic straws, we won't need to hear about the climate emergency again.
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