Share This Article
Starting January 1, 2025 hotels in NYC Manhattan will be banned from having plastic shampoos, conditioners, and more items.
| All products featured on The Wellness Feed are independently selected by our editors for their environmental and ethical impact. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. |
“Goodbye, single-use plastic” should be a slogan in New York City by now. In 2020 the city banned single-use plastic carryout bags and has been rolling out more plastic-free bans ever since. Limitations have been put on single-use packaging for takeout and single-use plastic utensils from restaurants in 2023. Now, beginning in 2025, hotels in the Big Apple will have to get rid of single-use plastic personal care items.
The ban dates back to 2021 when New York Gov. Kathy Huchul signed the bill prohibiting hotels from “making available to its hotel guests small plastic bottles containing hospitality personal care products.” While it was supposed to go into effect earlier, the ban will officially start on January 1, 2025 for hotels with more than 50 rooms. Smaller hotels have until 2026 for the ban to go into effect. Hotels that violate the new law will have to pay a fine that will be put in an environmental protection fund.
“Reducing single-use plastics is vital in the fight against the climate crisis—plastic is a major source of carbon emissions and a financial anchor to the fossil fuel industry. This new law tackles the ever-growing problem associated with plastic waste and will prevent tens of millions of plastic bottles from becoming a waste burden in New York every year,” New York City environment director at the Natural Resources Defense Council Eric A. Goldstein said in a 2021 statement about the bill.
1 Hotel Central Park is a sustainable hotel located in the heart of NYC
The Standard, High Line New York offers refillable shampoo and conditioner for hotel guests.
Hotels anticipating the passing of this bill have already begun phasing out personal care items in single-use plastic containers. Instead of offering guests small bottles with 1 to 2 uses before hitting the trash, boutique establishments such as The Standard, have refillable glass containers placed in showers that are used the same way as the pump for a liquid hand soap. Others have begun offering solid botanical hand soaps and shampoos wrapped in recyclable plastic. Guests can still rely on having a shampoo or cleanser at their preferred hotel, but without the plastic waste.
New York City isn’t the first to ban single-use plastic from its hotels. California passed a similar bill in 2019 that went into effect in 2023 and 2024 for large and small hotels respectively. Likewise, Washington has also signed a bill that will go into effect in 2027. And hotel establishments such as the Marriott, are also taking it upon themselves to ban single-use plastic shampoos. Together these efforts will reduce the hundreds of millions of plastic bottles polluting our landfills yearly.