With the start of a fresh year, on January 1, 2018 Anantara and AVANI Hotels and Resorts have announced their decision to end the use of plastic drinking straws at all their hotels and resorts in Asia.
With this decision, Anantara and Avani has become the first major hotel brands to eradicate the use of plastic straws and replace with bamboo straws in all properties across the Asia Region.
“As industry leaders, it’s important for us to play an active role in reducing the consumption and wastage of plastic globally. The enormous benefits for the health of the oceans makes this an obvious choice from both a business and environmental perspective. Across Asia, this will save 2.5 million plastic straws in the first year alone,” William Heinecke, Founder, CEO and Chairman of Minor Hotels, which includes both Anantara and AVANI brands has stated.
The negative impact of plastic on the environment is one that cannot be denied with 300 million tons of plastic being produced on an annual basis and 8.8 million tons being dumped into the ocean globally.
The throwaway nature of these single-use, seemingly harmless plastic straws are actually one of the top two polluters of the ocean, and each straw takes up to 500 years to decompose. The total number of plastic straws used daily is so large that no global usage figure exists. But Americans alone use 500 million straws daily, according to the National Park Service.
Anatara and AVANI hope to inspire more hospitality ooperators to follow leas and even ecourage guests to draw from such experiences and be more eco conscious once back in their day to day lives as well. They added that it is also a major step forward in achieving wider sustainability goals and contributes hugely to protecting the natural habitats of many endangered species
“As both brands are part of the Minor Hotels International Group, this initiative will also be adopted by Oaks and Tivoli properties in Asia. The Elewana Collection properties will also follow once the plastic straw ban is applied to properties outside Asia,” the statement read.
The announcement comes alongside the existing environmental initiatives at various Minor Hotels globally. These include the Dugong Conservation projects at Anantara Si Kao, the Mai Khao Marine Turtle Foundation, the aquaponics farm at Anantara Bangkok Riverside Resort, and the ongoing work of the Holistic Approach to Reef Protection at Anantara Kihavah Maldives.
Anantara runs three resorts in the Maldives: Anantara Veli Resort and Anantara Dhigu Resort in South Male Atoll, and Anantara Kihavah Villas in Baa atoll. In addition to the Anantara branded resorts, Minor separately runs Naladhu Private Island Maldives in the South Male Atoll and Niyama Maldives Private Islands in Dhaalu atoll.
Meanwhile, AVANI has recently announced the development of its first property in the Maldives, with the AVANI Fares Maldives Resort scheduled to open in late 2019.
