Six independent tour operators have launched an initiative to eliminate up to one million plastic water bottles from being used on their holidays by the end of 2020.
As well as tackling single-use bottles, the One Bottle at a Time (OBaaT) scheme aims to develop a guide to best practice for holiday travel.
The tour operators are Experience Travel, Holiday Architects, Pura Aventura, Selective Asia, Steppes Travel and Wild Frontiers and they aim to invite other operators later this year.
Nick Pulley, managing director of Selective Asia and OBaaT spokesman, said: “Selective Asia had worked for several years to try and eliminate single-use plastic water bottles from our holidays in Asia with varying degrees of success.
“The logistics are challenging and we realised that we needed to work across the industry with like-minded companies and get our clients onboard to really scale up, meet our ambitious targets and make a global difference to our planet’s future.
“With this in mind, in 2019 we came together as a collective to share, learn and define best practice before promoting the initiative to the others in the industry.”
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The OBaaT group hopes to expand to 100 tour operators and travel suppliers by the end of this year.
It estimates that tourists use an average of four plastic bottles a day on their holidays and so the operators are trialling schemes to help clients safely refill their reusable water bottles.
These include ground agents and destination management companies not giving out single-use bottles in vehicles, while hotels, lodges and camps are providing clean drinking water in canisters and water stations.
Furthermore, the operators are encouraging airlines to stop offering single-use plastic cups and water bottles to passengers.
The operators are also providing customers with safe and reusable water bottles or encouraging them to take along their own bottles.
Picture credit: Experience Travel Group