Patrick Tine, Times Union, Albany, N.Y. (TNS)
ALBANY — Lovers of communal shampoo dispensers touched by countless strangers, rejoice.
Small bottles of “hospitality personal care products” like conditioner, shampoo, body wash and moisturizer will be banned in hotels with 50 or more rooms beginning on Jan. 1, 2025, under new New York regulations.
Hotels with 50 or fewer rooms will come under the ban in 2026.
The rules had originally been scheduled to come into effect in 2023 and 2024, but industry lobbyists pushed for a delay in order for hotel owners still reeling from COVID-19 to use stocks of plastic bottles they had already paid for.
The ban covers bottles of 12 ounces or less and applies to hotels, motels and any other “building or portion of a building which is regularly used and kept open as such for the lodging of guests,” according to guidelines posted on the Department of Environmental Conservation’s website.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill, originally introduced by former Sen. Todd Kaminsky, in 2021 as part of a package of environmental protection legislation. The effort to ban the items is part of a larger push to reduce single-use plastic in the state, including an effort to double bottle deposits to 10 cents.
Broader efforts to reduce plastic packaging were debated in this year’s legislative session. The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would require companies with more than $1 million in net income that sell or distribute packaging materials to “reduce packaging, improve recycling and recycling infrastructure, financially support municipal recycling programs, and reduce toxins in packaging.”
The bill passed the Senate but was not brought up for a vote in the Assembly. Opponents derided the bill as it could change how processed cheese slices could be packaged in the state.
California is the only other state to have enacted a similar ban on plastic hotel toiletry bottles. The state’s ban on single-use plastic bottles in hotels with 50 or more rooms took effect in 2023 and a ban on bottles in smaller properties came into force this year.
Many travelers have bemoaned the shift to wall-mounted dispensers for shampoo, conditioner and soap at major hotel chains, including North American properties operated by Hilton and Marriott. Common gripes found online suggest the traveling public, particularly those who travel frequently for business, find the dispensers unhygienic, especially if they are made of opaque plastic. The move away from single-use bottles is further evidence of the cheapening of the travel experience even as the cost of hotel rooms continues to rise.
Kaminsky cited the enormous waste and environmental degradation that comes with single-use plastic when the bill was signed, noting that 27 million bottles in New York City hotels alone will be eliminated when the rules come into force.
Mark Dorr, the president of the New York State Hospitality and Tourism Association, said that his group supports the new rules and he has received virtually no pushback from hoteliers about the change. In addition to being better for the environment, it is cheaper for hotels to refill bottles of personal care products rather than to restock miniature bottles continually.
The changes will be negligible for most hotels in the state, Dorr said. “About 75 percent of hotels are already using the reusable bottles.”
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