Sands China Bans Plastic Straws; Outlines Further Green Initiatives

Sands China has stopped offering guests plastic straws at all its properties, in an effort to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics.

The company's ban on the use of plastic straws went into effect on 1 January 2019 and will eliminate the use of 2.2 million plastic straws each year, saving about 1 ton of plastic annually.

Laid down end-to-end on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, that's enough straws to stretch from Macau to Hong Kong 10 times.

The move is one of several new initiatives to curb the use of single-use plastics at Sands China's properties, which employ more than 28,000 team members and received more than 92 million visitors in 2017.

"Our company is constantly looking for new ways to decrease our carbon footprint, so that we can be ever-more responsible stewards of our environment," said Mark McWhinnie, senior vice president of resort operations and development for Sands China Ltd. "This ban on plastic straws, along with other plastic-reduction measures, will have a significant impact on our sustainability efforts, resulting in a greener Macau."

Those other measures include a plan to progressively replace hotel rooms' single-use bathroom amenities, such as shampoo and conditioner bottles, with refillable dispensers. Implementation is scheduled to begin early this year and is estimated to eliminate around 2.7 million plastic bottles per year.

Sands China has also redesigned the complimentary bottles of water supplied to rooms and suites, resulting in 3 million fewer bottles of water provided per year.

Additionally, the company is installing filtered water dispensers in properties' public areas on a trial basis. If successful, the change would be rolled out at all properties, massively reducing the usage of bottled water.

Sands China's initiatives to reduce single-use plastic have also identified other areas for improvement. One such area is in the company's laundry services, where efforts are being made to eliminate, replace, or recycle 95% of single-use plastic packaging, clothes hangers and garment clips.

See also: Hotel Waste, Single-Use Plastic and Climate Change - Interview with WWF, Sustainable Hotels - Crowne Plaza Changi Airport Interview with GM, Bruno Cristol and Sustainable Hotels - PHIST Interview with GM of JW Marriott Phuket.

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