As some of you may have heard, California just passed AB1162, which bans the use of plastic bottles for shampoo and whatnot in hotels. Although there’s no such restriction here in Alabama (I'm here on business, I didn't move here), they use packets, and it may be a sign of what’s to come if you plan to go to CA. Please allow me to give you a comparison:
Plastic bottles:
- Unscrew cap.
- Rinse, wash, repeat.
- DONE.
- Try to tear it open with wet hands. No dice.
- Thoroughly dry hands and try again. No dice.
- Try to tear open with teeth, hoping you won’t ingest some of the shampoo. Luckily in this case, it still won’t open.
- Walk out to where your pants are while dripping wet to try to get your pocket knife.
- Realize you left your pocket knife in your car, defeatedly march back and finish the rest of your shower.
- Get dressed and go to the car.
- Spent a few minutes searching the car and cut open packet.
- Wash hair, squeeze out a bit too much since this is not an interface that you’re used to, but try to make due and wash hair a bit too lathered. Repeat with what little shampoo is left if needed.
- Remember that you walked out of the bathroom and got the floor wet, dry hotel room floor with a towel.
- Not wanting to be held liable for dirtying the towel, awkwardly hand-wash the dirt the towel picked up soap bar that is all flimsy by now.
- (Really?) DONE.
- Plastic bottles can be reused, like if I’m feeling cheap, I can just take the bottle and go to Motel 6 or even certain Extended Stay America locations, which as some of us know, you have to ask for shampoo. When you’re tired, it’s one more thing to remember if you do remember, or a walk back to the front desk to ask for it if you don't.
- Since there’s slim pickings for travel-sized body wash/shampoo, it’s hard to get the style you want, even the high-end organic stuff I use, so it’s either I awkwardly funnel some body wash/shampoo into the damned TSA-approved 3 oz. bottles (which I already used up, being on the road for almost 2 months and all) before leaving, or like what I’ve seen plenty of times: Buy a standard-sized bottle, then discard it upon flying out. Bureaucrats, if you haven’t figured out the latter yet, but this is creating MORE waste with a bigger plastic bottle AND a larger portion of whatever unused product is in the bottle, so we’ve regressed beyond square one (square… -5?).
- STILL have plastic waste, just in a different form. At least with a plastic bottle, you have a solid bottle that’s easier to discard. A packet, if it’s going to be an environmental concern, is more conducive to disrupting the ecosystem, and if this is intended to prevent animals from ingesting it, a flexible packet is much easier to ingest than a rigid bottle!
