Prepare to travel with your own bath essentials the next time you stay at a hotel in New York. New York State will be banning all big hotels from providing toiletry items in mini plastic hotels.
Effective January 1, 2025, all hotels with more than 50 rooms will be mandated to phase out small plastic toiletry bottles under 12 ounces. The mandate comes as a bill was passed in the New York Assembly banning hotels from providing shampoo, moisturizers or any other “hospitality personal care products” in small-sized plastic bottles. For hotels with less than 50 rooms, the ban will go into effect in 2026.
The law defines “hospitality personal care products” as a “product provided by a hotel and intended to be applied to or used on the human body or any part thereof for cleansing.”
Hotels will be fined $250 for initial violations and $500 for further breaches. The money raised from penalties will be utilized in the state’s Environmental Protection Fund, the New York Times stated.
The bill was first introduced in the State Legislature in 2019 by former state senator Todd Kaminsky and former state assemblyman Steven Englebright. In 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul signed the measure into law. The law was set to be implemented on January 1, 2023, but was delayed as hotel industry lobbyists asked for more time to use up the plastic bottles already in stock, Fox Television Stations reported.
New York joins California in the ban. California passed a similar law in 2019, which was implemented last year for hotels with more than 50 rooms. Washington state is likely to follow New York and a similar law will roll out in 2027. Illinois is also considering a law to limit single-use plastics at hotels.
Back in 2019, Marriott announced it would replace tiny, single-use toiletry bottles with bigger, wall-mounted pump-topped bottles at all its hotels globally by December 2020. In its latest annual ESG report, the hospitality giant said it had achieved 95% compliance for the transition to large-format residential bath amenities for some of its brands across its globally managed and franchised hotels in 2023, with plans to expand the transition to more properties in 2024.
Holiday Inn and its parent company IHG also announced in 2019 its plans to ditch mini toiletries in over 5,600 of its hotels by 2021. In 2018, Walt Disney Co. pledged to reduce plastic by around 80% by providing refillable toiletries in its hotels and cruise ships.
