A Wren Says

As a child, my favorite part of staying in a hotel was getting the tiny bottles of shampoo. It was like a free souvenir (that my parents definitely paid for). As an adult, I continued to revel in having the little takeaways from my journeys. Only now, that is becoming a rarer and rarer pleasure.

In New York, the State senate recently signed a bill into law outright banning small plastic bottles in small and large hotels. However, I have noticed that hotels across states have also turned to stocking large refillable bottles of toiletries rather than individual mini bottles. And that makes me sad.

As a traveler, I appreciated having a tiny bottle of lotion to take as the hand cream I may have forgotten. Or a little souvenir of a luxe brand I hadn’t thought to buy for myself. But in the name of sustainability, I get it. Even though selfishly I wish it weren’t so.  

Now, technically, the language of the bill doesn’t exclude aluminum and glass packaging. So there is still a chance hotels stocked by Diptyque could keep providing the tubes of hand cream in aluminum tubes. I’ll also add that this brings up a question for those hotels that provide toothpaste to guests, either stocked in room or on demand. Would that be allowed given it isn’t technically a bottle?

There are still some questions here. How things will play out when the ban is fully in place? Will other states with strong environmental lobbies follow suit? How will this impacts the way hotels promote their amenities and the guest experience overall?

But what are your thoughts?