Plastic waste reduction through in-house water cleaning system in the Maldives

Plastic pollution is one of the major challenges to tackle to reduce climate change. 400 million tons of plastic run the risk of potentially ending up in the world’s oceans every year. If the historical trends continue, global primary plastic production is forecasted to reach 1 100 million tonnes by 2050. While 300 million tons of plastic waste is produced each year around the world, a total of 1,500 plastic bottles are thrown away every second.

However, how would the idyllic oceans surrounding the Maldives islands in South Asia look covered with plastic bottles? This is the challenge that the Constance Halaveli Maldives hotel has tried to address by providing its own house water on-site via the Echo Pure System - a system that purifies the local tap water. Filtered water is served to all guests, with an average of 350 bottles being produced and consumed daily. The bottled water is free of charge to all guests. As a further commitment, the resort also encourages guests to purchase reusable water bottles available at their hotel store. Moreover, the incentive prevents unnecessary shipping of bottled water from the mainland.

Moreover, their partnering with the Parley Ocean School for plastic recycling since 2018 has amounted to 651kg of plastic for recycling over two years. Together, the hotel and Parley Ocean collects all the waste plastic from the island and sends the collected plastic bottles to Germany for recycling with the purpose of upscaling it to create new items, such as Adidas performance sportswear and running shoes.