The bottles of shampoo and shower gel offered in our hotel rooms are living their last hours. Here’s why.
Let’s face it: we’ve all done it. Discreetly slip the small bottle of shampoo or shower gel placed on the edge of the bathtub into your toiletry bag, just before leaving the hotel room.
Many travelers know this almost instinctive gesture by heart. This is particularly true for those who travel in the cabin and prefer to rely on hotel products rather than bothering to buy or fill regulatory mini-bottles. However, these welcome products that we love so much could soon disappear from European bathrooms. The European Union is in fact preparing to ban them.
As part of the regulation on packaging and packaging waste (known as PPWR), adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in 2024, Brussels intends to drastically limit the use of disposable containers in several sectors, including the hotel industry. It is indeed the famous individual bottles that are in the viewfinder. Shampoos, shower gels, conditioners or lotions offered in rooms, generally packaged in formats less than 100 ml or 100 g, must be removed when they are for single use. According to the timetable provided for in the text, this ban must come into force by 2030.
The reason for this upheaval is simple: these small plastic packaging generate considerable quantities of waste. To give an idea, the Marriott group alone estimated to eliminate nearly 500 million miniature bottles per year simply by switching to refillable dispensers. Across the entire European hotel industry, billions of plastic containers end up in the trash every year. They are often half full, thrown away during daily cleaning even when there is some left. An ecological nonsense that Brussels wants to put an end to once and for all.
To comply with regulations, hotels will therefore have to rethink their bathrooms. The most obvious solution, already adopted by several large chains, consists of installing refillable dispensers fixed in the shower or near the sink. These systems make it possible to offer shampoo and shower gel in large quantities while considerably reducing packaging. For travelers, the change will be gradual but very real. Welcome products will remain available, but they will no longer come in the form of those little bottles that we loved to take so much.
Good news all the same: travel formats sold in stores are not affected by this measure. Everyone can therefore continue to slip their favorite shampoo into their cabin kit. It remains to be seen whether large wall-mounted dispensers will one day have the same charm as a small bottle slipped into a suitcase as a souvenir.
