Great Wolf Resorts and the Oetker Collection, a luxury hospitality brand, have announced plans to phase out plastic straws and other products as part of a push for more sustainable, environmentally friendly operations. Annually, more than five million plastic straws enter local landfills.

More hospitality organizations are taking steps to phase out plastics and move toward more sustainable, environmentally friendly operations, reported Hotel Business. 

Great Wolf Resorts has announced that it will replace plastic straws at all 17 of its indoor water park resorts with paper straws, reported Hotel Business.

The family-friendly resort company pledged to remove plastic straws from all of its food-and-beverage locations before the end of this year, saving more than five million plastic straws from entering local landfills annually, reported Hotel Business.

In 2007, Great Wolf Lodge introduced Project Green Wolf, a program focused on energy and resource conservation. In addition to the paper straws, Great Wolf Lodge will maintain a small supply of other straw options for guests who are unable to drink from non-flexible paper straws, reported Hotel Business.

Luxury hospitality brand Oetker Collection will phase out the use of all disposable plastics, with a complete ban in place by the end of this year, reported Hotel Business.

The plan runs alongside other sustainability commitments by Oetker, including a goal to replace plastic bottles with glass bottles and install water filtration systems, reported Hotel Business.

The Oetker Collection’s ban will include the elimination of all of these plastic elements in all of its hotels, Hotel Business reported:

• Plastic straws
• Plastic spoons
• Plastic cups
• Plastic glass covers in rooms
• Plastic wrapping of individual sugar cubes
• Plastic Q-tips/cotton swabs