Stevie Van Zandt and Jackson Browne have called for a boycott of Marriott hotels over the chain’s use of plastics.
“The last thing we need right now is more plastic waste,” Van Zandt said in a statement to Asbury Park Press. “There is no longer any excuse – if there ever was – for businesses to sacrifice environmental responsibility for profit. The two are no longer mutually exclusive – if they ever were – and any attempt to present the false choice of one over the other is a lie.”
“We each have it in our power to support businesses that take care not to further degrade our environment, and to bring that considerable consumer power to bear in the fight for a sustainable future,” Jackson Browne said in a statement in support for Van Zandt. “I’m happy to answer Stevie Van Zandt’s call for this boycott. I spend much of my year in hotel rooms, and it is absolutely my choice not to stay where they serve food in plastic.”
Marriott International is currently looking at the issue, said a company spokesperson to the Asbury Park Press.
“We are continually evaluating packaging for environmental impact and are committed to reducing our reliance on plastics,” said a spokesperson via email. “We can confirm that the packaging used with Fresh Bites, one of our in-room dining programs in the U.S., is all recyclable and made of pre-consumer recycled material.”
“Marriott Hotels have a new policy of serving room service in plastic containers. This is a terrible idea for at least 4 reasons: Plastic is a worldwide environmental problem; Economically it is idiotic; The negative imaging removes all class and dignity from the hotel chain. The concept, which is to minimize human interaction (!) is mindless and counterproductive at best. And totally unnecessary since the employees I met were wonderful people. This needs an organized protest,” Van Zandt had wrote on Twitter after he was served breakfast on plastic containers during last month’s stay at a Marriott Hotel in Morgantown, West Virginia.
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