Meliá Palma Bay making progress in eliminating plastics

The hotel, part of the Palma Congress Centre facilities, has taken the first steps to achieving the commitment announced by Meliá Hotels International to eliminate single-use plastics from all its hotels worldwide. The hotel aims to reduce its carbon footprint and contribute to combatting climate change, one of the main risks the world faces over the next 10 years according to the Global Risk Report published by the World Economic Forum.

Meliá Palma Bay has already eliminated plastic bottles and straws in restaurants, room service, minibars and meeting rooms, replacing them with paper straws and returnable glass bottles, as well as supplying water dispensers with returnable carafes in public areas and glass dispensers for flavoured water.

The hotel estimates this will eliminate more than 125,000 plastic bottles and 48,500 straws per year. The hotel has also stopped using plastic bags in the bins in guestrooms, replacing them with paper bin liners, and is gradually replacing other plastics such as cups and coasters with products made with alternative materials.

Other measures have also already been implemented in the laundry service, where plastic bags are now no longer used.

The Palma Congress Centre was inaugurated in 2017 and was designed around sustainable construction and energy efficiency criteria. Meliá Hotels International operates the entire facilities under a responsible management model which aims to minimise the environmental impact of its activity. Since it opened, the company has invested more than 150,000 euros in energy efficiency technology and has recently announced new investments of 60,000 euros in more improvements to help reduce energy consumption in both buildings (Congress Centre and hotel). The company is also firmly committed to optimising waste management. The current recycling rate at the Congress Centre stands at almost 70%, far higher than the European Union target of 50% for 2020.