Since 2016, we’ve started our journey on plastic reduction and decided to discontinue the distribution of plastic wrapped wet wipes, while working towards the reduction of single-use plastic water bottles and we’ve achieved great results with 40% of single-use plastic water bottles reduction.
We’ve engaged our supply chain in setting up water stations, which can be found in most of our preferred hotels and funded “Refill My Bottle” application that makes it easier for travellers and tour guides to locate water stations around them.
Most importantly, we’ve provided reusable bottles to travellers. However, we recognize that since then the world has changed tremendously and most people already have reusable bottles at home, ready to be carried out in their bags and that it has become the new normal.
Now more than ever, we firmly believe that travellers should be encouraged to travel with their own reusable bottles and guided by our local experts to refill their bottles where water fountains are in place, and we’ll continue to foster the development of water stations for locals and travellers alike.
Looking back, we’ve realized that most of the time water provided during transport ended up wasted, our suppliers not only had to handle the logistics of making water available at all times, but were left to use the remaining litres of water. We’ve tried using it in our offices and in theirs, but it was more than we could handle.
Many reasons can explain this wastage of water, while in our care travellers do not spend too many hours only in transport, they have plenty of opportunities to stop at local cafés and enjoy a drink and in our preferred hotels that they leave in the morning and come back to in the afternoon, they have easy access to safe and drinkable water.
Therefore, we’ve turned to partner organizations specialized in waste management in our destinations and re-assessed our projects. Following their advice, we’d like to divert our plastic reduction efforts to focus on non-recyclable plastic waste, rather than on plastic that is recyclable in all our destinations.
On the ground, we want to make sure that plastic water bottles we still provide are either 100% recycled or simply eliminated with your consent.
We’ll continue to include information on single-use plastic reduction, in our tour guide training programs and in our supplier’s sustainability assessment, to raise awareness around accessibility of water. Our teams, will dedicate their time and resources on working hands-in-hands with our supply chain to ensure that non-recyclable items are avoided, at hotels, restaurants, street-food stalls and especially for :
- packed meals – picnics
- snacks – treats
- cups and straws
- bags and packaging
We believe that plastic reduction can be achieved thanks to responsible behaviour, that we can foster together through the provision before departure of advice on reusable items travellers should pack with them (e.g. reusable bottle, bags, straws).
In a nutshell, we firmly believe that the best bottle for you and the environment is the bottle that you pick once and stick with. Instead of providing new reusable bottles, we recommend travellers to :
- Pick a bottle you love and stick with it – even if that means saying ‘no’ to a free bottle you’re not going to use!
- Choose reusable bottles which are easy to take apart, i.e. each part is made of one material.
- Reuse or donate your old bottles instead of sending them to landfill or recycling
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