‘When we do something important, it has potential to be looked at as a model’

November 10

Starting next year, visitors to New York State will be experiencing a little less wastefulness, as the state legislature recently passed a new law banning hotels from offering small plastic bottles of shampoo and conditioner, the New York Times reported.

The new law will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025, and will only apply to hotels with 50 or more rooms. Businesses that do not comply will be fined $250 for the first infraction and $500 for subsequent infractions, with that money going to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund.

“New York is the size of many countries, so New York’s role is watched,” former state assemblyman and current Suffolk County legislator Steven Englebright said.

Englebright introduced the bill in the state legislature in 2019, displaying some customary New York humility. “When we do something important, it has the potential to be looked at as a model for our sister states.”

New York is not the first state to enact similar legislation. California has also banned plastic toiletry bottles in hotels, and Washington state and Illinois have passed laws as well. Other states are considering the same measure.

Although these plastic bottles are small, the pollution they cause really adds up. A spokesperson for Marriott told the Times that switching to larger, hand-pumped bottles will prevent “around 500 million small bath amenity bottles from going to landfills each year.”

Watch now: What’s the point of leaf blowing anyway?

Plastic pollution is a huge problem for our planet. Plastic is made from nonrenewable petroleum, and an estimated 8 to 10 million metric tons (roughly 8.8 to 11.1 million tons) of it winds up in our oceans every year, killing countless marine animals.

The material does not biodegrade — it sheds microplastics instead, which are now showing up in every corner of our planet.

One of the reasons for this is that businesses recognize that cheap single-use plastic products are an easy way to maximize their profits. One simple way to solve that problem is to make single-use plastics not cheap anymore by penalizing businesses that use them.

Although for-profit businesses may believe that their right to make money supersedes the right of people to live in a world that isn’t drowning in plastic pollution, these new laws make it clear that this is not the case.

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