You could discover one thing’s just a little completely different subsequent time you order a chilly drink on a Southwest Airways flight.
As an alternative of plastic, your beverage will arrive in a cup made primarily of bamboo and will probably be served with a birchwood stir stick sporting the provider’s iconic “Coronary heart” branding.
Here is what it appears to be like like:
The brand new stir stick is made totally of birchwood that’s licensed by the Forest Stewardship Council, a nonprofit group that makes use of unbiased events to confirm that forests are managed responsibly. The brand new cup is created from 93% non-plastic supplies, with a pulp mix comprised of 75% bamboo and 25% paper, and likewise has a polyethylene lining. Bamboo is taken into account a “quickly renewable materials” by the U.S. Inexperienced Constructing Council (a corporation devoted to minimizing local weather impacts) as a result of it reaches maturation in three to 5 years.
Southwest mentioned it performed “strong testing” on the gadgets with each prospects 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 scale back its use of inflight single-use plastics by greater than 1.5 million kilos per yr. This can assist the corporate make progress in direction of its bigger sustainability objectives.
“We’re excited to proceed collaborating with our suppliers to work towards our purpose 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 an announcement.
Southwest’s Nonstop to Web Zero technique, which was introduced in 2023, established the airline’s purpose of becoming a member of the bigger aviation group in reaching internet zero carbon emissions by 2050. The corporate’s 2025 objectives are to scale back single-use plastics generated by inflight service by 50% (by weight) and to save lots of 50 million incremental gallons of jet gasoline.
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 product of 100% post-consumer recycled supplies, totally eliminating the usage of 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 scale back single-use plastic packaging by at the very least 18,000 kilos yearly.
Southwest is different locations to additional scale back the usage of single-use plastics inflight.
In line with the provider’s 2023 Southwest One Report, whereas 75% of the onboard single-use plastics have 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 get rid of comes from single-use wine and liquor bottles. The airline has additionally made a dedication to enhance its recycling program by (amongst different actions) “working towards 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, in fact, is not the one airline engaged on methods to achieve its sustainability objectives. 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.
