Centara Hotels & Resorts marked this year’s 2019 World Environment Day with a sculpted sea creature-cum-trash-bin named POP, short for “Plastic Only, Please”, installed along the iconic resort’s beachfront on 1st June to raise awareness of the scourge of plastic waste.
Hua Hin, Thailand — As part of its commitment to Hua Hin’s environmental sustainability and development, Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas Hua Hin recently welcomed Hua Hin Mayor Nopporn Wuthikul to take part in its latest initiative, POP, aimed at promoting environmental awareness in Hua Hin.
Centara Hotels & Resorts marked this year’s 2019 World Environment Day with a sculpted sea creature-cum-trash-bin named POP, short for “Plastic Only, Please”, installed along the iconic resort’s beachfront on 1st June to raise awareness of the scourge of plastic waste. Each time the plastic-hungry sea creature fills up with collected plastic trash, the hotel’s waste management team removes POP to empty and weigh the contents and prepare the trash for sorting and delivery to local recycling facilities.
Thanks to the amazing results achieved during the 50-day visit of this larger-than-life, fish-shaped trash can, Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas Hua Hin Director of Quality Assurance, Duenphen Pengkasem, led the effort to extend the initiative and keep the POP display. This extension was successfully achieved owing to great support from Mayor Nopporn and his Hua Hin Municipality Office team, which has been actively promoting environmental awareness in the community and supporting greater responsibility and care for the environment of this resort town.
Rather than creating more plastic garbage that pollutes the environment and adds to the burden of nearby landfills, these plastic-eating creatures are providing a first-line waste management filter, diverting reusable plastic materials to be recycled into new products instead of going straight to the garbage.
Eliminating single-use plastic items is a key priority of the 2019 Centara Earth Care programme, a company-wide initiative aimed at encouraging hotel guests and tourists to be proactive about energy saving and sustainable environmental tourism.
Centara’s sustainability plan covers five types of single-use plastic items, including drinking straws, laundry bags, take-away food containers, fitness centre and poolside plastic bottles, and plastic guest room amenities. They are being replaced with items made from materials designed to minimise environmental impact. The single-use plastic straws being eliminated take up to 200 years to decompose; the new bio-straws replacing them decompose within six months.
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