The tiny shampoo and lotion bottles in hotel bathrooms can feel like a novelty and convenient freebie to sneak into your suitcase before checkout. Room service and continental breakfast buffets feel like luxuries compared to the weeknight meals at home. Turning up the thermostat without worrying about the heating bill can feel liberating. But what if we thought about the environmental impact our hotel stays had? Marriott International (No. 2 on 2019 Top Companies for Diversity) unveiled “Serve 360 Doing Good in Every Direction,” a platform that focuses on Marriott’s philanthropic and environmental practices in 2017. Along with reducing food waste and conserving energy, its most current initiative involves doing away with single-use plastic toiletry products by the end of 2020.
Transitioning from single-use bottles to 10oz pump containers made from recyclable and reusable plastic can save about half a billion tiny bottles annually, Denise Naguib, Marriott’s head of sustainability said in an interview with Fair360, formerly DiversityInc. That’s 1.7 million pounds of plastic that will be
kept from landfills and the environment and a 30% reduction in Marriott’s current amenity plastic waste. The plan for larger-sized shower containers is the latest in a series of greener moves the company has taken.
