Little travel shampoo bottles are going away at Marriott and InterContinental

The next time you check into a hotel, you may not be coming home stocked up with tiny shampoo and lotion bottles.

Marriott International, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, announced plans to eliminate single-use bottles of shampoo and other liquids from most of its hotels worldwide by December 2020. The Bethesda, Md.-based hotel giant says hotel guests will instead get such bathroom necessities from large, pump-topped bottles that, in most cases, are fastened to bathroom walls.

Intercontinental Hotel Group made a similar pledge in July, promising to switch out the tiny bottles for larger pump-topped bottles in all of the company’s more than 5,600 hotels worldwide by 2021

Marriott and rival InterContinental began last year to replace the tiny toiletry bottles for larger dispensers primarily in hotels in North America, saying the tiny bottles are rarely recycled and often end up in landfills. Marriott has already replaced the tiny bottles at more than 20% of its 7,000 hotels and properties and announced plans this week to do the same for nearly all of its properties within 16 months.

“Our guests are looking to us to make changes that will create a meaningful difference for the environment while not sacrificing the quality, service and experience they expect from our hotels,” said Arne Sorenson, president and chief executive of Marriott, which operates such brands as Courtyard by Marriott, SpringHill Suites, Residence Inn and Fairfield by Marriott, among others.

Once the switch is completed, Marriott estimates it will eliminate the disposal of about 500 million tiny plastic bottles into landfills.

The announcement to eliminate the single-use bottle comes more than a year after the company began phasing out disposable plastic straws and drink stirrers by offering them only when requested by customers. The hotel company says the policy change has so far prevented more than 1 billion plastic straws from going into landfills.