If you rely on hotels’ complimentary small bottles of lotion and shampoo during your stay, you’re not going to like this news.
Beginning in 2025, all hotels in the state of New York with more than 50 rooms will be banned from providing the products to guests. Hotels with 50 or fewer rooms will have until 2026 to comply with the new state law aimed at reducing waste.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill in 2021, and the new regulations were supposed to take effect in 2023 and 2024, but lobbyists pushed for a delay so hotel owners could work through the backlog of single-use products they still possessed from the height of the pandemic.
The ban, which is part of a broader effort to reduce single-use plastic, requires hotels stop using bottles of 12 ounces or less for “hospitality personal care products” like conditioner, shampoo, body wash, and moisturizer.
Some major hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott have already switched to communal dispensers, but for those that have not they will need to get rid of their products by January 1, 2025.
Hotels with less than 50 rooms will have to comply with the new regulations by January 1, 2026.
California has also enacted a similar ban on single-use hospitality personal care products. The state’s ban took effect in 2023.
Washington state also passed a measure, but their rules don’t go into effect until 2027 and 2028. Illinois could become the next state to enact similar rules. A bill banning the single-use plastic bottles was recently sent to the state’s governor.
While some customers may not like the idea of banning the small bottles of body wash and shampoo, the New York State Hospitality and Tourism Association is completely behind the idea.
“The changes will be negligible for most hotels in the state, Mark Dorr, the president of the New York State Hospitality and Tourism Association, said. “About 75 percent of hotels are already using the reusable bottles.”
Do you like the idea of hotels banning the use of single-use plastic hospitality products? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
