Hawaii Considers Ban Of Small Toiletry Bottles At Hotels
State lawmakers hope a ban will reduce the amount of plastic going to landfills.
Hotel rooms in Hawaii might soon be without those small plastic bottles that hold liquids and creams, such as shampoo, conditioner and body wash.
A joint-panel of House lawmakers advanced a bill Thursday morning requiring that 鈥渟ingle-use toiletries鈥 be replaced with more environmentally conscious dispensing systems.
, the small bottles ban, still needs to clear two more committees before it makes it to a floor vote in the 51-member House.
If the bill passes, the ban will begin Jan. 1, 2025, for lodging establishments with more than 50 rooms and Jan. 1, 2027, for those with fewer than 50 rooms.
鈥淧ersonally, I know my dad will compulsively take and save the little toiletries no matter where they stay because it鈥檚 free, so my parents鈥 house has a drawer full of mini shampoos and conditioners that no one ever uses, but it鈥檚 so unnecessary,” said Rep. Nicole Lowen, chairwoman of the House Energy and Environmental Protection committee and one of the introducers of the bill.
In 2018, landfills received, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Although plastics are found in all solid waste categories, plastic packaging and containers, like small bottles of personal care products, had the overall highest weight, with more than 14.5 million tons discarded.
HB 1645’s prohibition of 鈥渟ingle-use toiletries” refers to shampoo, conditioner, bath soap and the like.
In 2019, California passed a similar bill,聽.
That same year, began its first global initiative to swap out single-use bottles for pump dispensers at more than 1,000 Mariott hotels. The company expects the initiative to eventually prevent 500 million small bottles from ending up in landfills each year.
Rep. Richard Onishi, chairman of the House Labor and Tourism Committee, said there’s more concern over the small bottles on neighbor islands. If the contents in these single-use bottles are not fully expended they are not considered recyclable, and so they end up in a landfill. Whereas on Oahu, they may be incinerated.
鈥淓liminating these single-use bottles would benefit both situations, one: it wouldn鈥檛 go into a landfill, and two: whatever is in the bottle won鈥檛 contaminate the ground,鈥 Onishi said.
Kekoa McClellan, a spokesman for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said many large hotel operators in Hawaii are already adhering to provisions in HB 1645.
“Some of the larger brands have been working towards these changes for many, many decades now,” McClellan said in an interview.
Lauren Bickley, the Surfrider Foundation鈥檚 Hawaii regional manager, stated in written testimony that a single 200-room four-star hotel can use about 300,000 pieces of single-use plastic in one month when at full-capacity.
HB 1645 鈥渨ill represent an important step towards eliminating unnecessary single-use plastics and improving the sustainability of the hospitality industry in Hawaii,鈥 Bickley said.
