Travelers Frustrated by Plastic Alternatives Offered by Companies
Photo Credit: A person driving drinks through a reusable glass straw, a sustainable alternative to plastic. Flickr / Chiot's Run
Skift Take
Reducing plastic waste is just step one. Step two is implementing alternatives to plastic. But how do companies get travelers on board if the alternatives are flawed? Part of the answer lies in forthright communication.
Travel companies are reducing their plastic waste in earnest, but less progress has been made on implementing plastic alternatives, many of which are frustrating travelers. Companies have more work to do in identifying plastic alternatives that travelers will love to use, not just use out of environmental guilt.
“I don’t really love the texture [of bamboo], especially the spork,” said Jason DiVenere, a frequent flyer who spent much of his career as an aerospace engineer at Boeing and SpaceShipTwo from Virgin Galactic. “Sometimes they break in half. Then I have to use multiple sporks and that’s kind of wasteful.”
“Am I happy about using it? No, but I still use it because I know it’s better for the environment,” he said.
These kinds of products are still fairly new to the marketplace and structural flaws are common. “This whole industry is in its infancy, and as more and more people use these things, more companies will spend R&D trying to figure out ways
