Chances are you’ll discover one thing’s a little bit completely different subsequent time you order a chilly drink on a Southwest Airways flight.
As a substitute of plastic, your beverage will arrive in a cup made primarily of bamboo and will likely be served with a birchwood stir stick sporting the provider’s iconic “Coronary heart” branding.
Here is what it seems like:
The brand new stir stick is made solely of birchwood that’s licensed by the Forest Stewardship Council, a nonprofit group that makes use of impartial events to confirm that forests are managed responsibly. The brand new cup is comprised of 93% non-plastic supplies, with a pulp mix comprised of 75% bamboo and 25% paper, and in addition has a polyethylene lining. Bamboo is taken into account a “quickly renewable materials” by the U.S. Inexperienced Constructing Council (a company devoted to minimizing local weather impacts) as a result of it reaches maturation in three to 5 years.
Southwest mentioned it performed “sturdy testing” on the gadgets with each clients and workers — switching from plastic to bamboo cups and birchwood stir sticks will not make your water, soda or different chilly drinks style completely different.
The Dallas-based airline additionally says that swapping to bamboo and birchwood cups will assist it cut back its use of inflight single-use plastics by greater than 1.5 million kilos per yr. This may assist the corporate make progress in direction of its bigger sustainability targets.
“We’re excited to proceed collaborating with our suppliers to work towards our objective of totally eliminating, the place possible, single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030,” mentioned Helen Giles, Southwest’s managing director of environmental sustainability, in a press release.
Southwest’s Nonstop to Web Zero technique, which was introduced in 2023, established the airline’s objective of becoming a member of the bigger aviation group in reaching internet zero carbon emissions by 2050. The corporate’s 2025 targets are to cut back single-use plastics generated by inflight service by 50% (by weight) and to avoid wasting 50 million incremental gallons of jet gas.
Moreover, in July 2024, Southwest beforehand lowered its use of sunshine plastic by switching the wrapping for its serviette bundles from plastic to a paper sheath manufactured from 100% post-consumer recycled supplies, totally eliminating using plastic on this particular merchandise.
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Within the coming months, Southwest plans to introduce a brand new select-a-snack providing on flights to and from Hawaii to lower meals waste and cut back single-use plastic packaging by a minimum of 18,000 kilos yearly.
Southwest is taking a look at different locations to additional cut back using single-use plastics inflight.
Based on the provider’s 2023 Southwest One Report, whereas 75% of the onboard single-use plastics had been generated from cups and stir sticks (now gone), in addition to straws and plastic snack packaging, about 25% of the plastic the airline is making an attempt to remove comes from single-use wine and liquor bottles. The airline has additionally made a dedication to enhance its recycling program by (amongst different actions) “training consistency” concerning onboard recycling, bettering its uniform recycling program and supporting quite a lot of applications and organizations that upcycle the airline’s leather-based seat covers.
Southwest, after all, is not the one airline engaged on methods to succeed in its sustainability targets. On Nationwide Reuse Day (Oct. 20), Alaska Airways examined a reusable cup program on a round-trip flight between Seattle and Minneapolis. The airline eradicated plastic cups on flights as of January 2023.
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