Thomas Cook Airlines (MT/TCX) together with the rest of the Thomas Cook Group is making a plastics pledge to remove single use plastic items from its operation.
Under its #NoPlaceForPlastic campaign, the next 12 months will see the group aims to remove large volume items such as stirrers and straws from all of its flight across the groups airlines, around 70 million items.
Around eight million plastic items enter the worlds oceans each day and can have devastating affects on marine life and their related ecosystems. Thomas Cook says that the holiday industry has a large part to play.
Research has shown that plastic pollution in the Mediterranean increases by 40% during the summer holiday season.
As well as pledging to reduce plastic, Thomas Cook will also be conducting a pilot scheme on the island of Rhodes where sustainable alternatives to plastics will be used at hotels and holiday resorts.
Thomas Cook says that more than a fifth of its customers say they are more likely to throw away plastic rather than recycle while they’re away from home. So the holiday group wants to raise awareness and find new ways to make it easier to breathe new life into tired plastics. They have announced another pilot scheme with designers Wyatt and Jack that will take broken and discarded plastic inflatables, lilos and children’s swimming armbands and turn them into bags and holiday accessories to be used again and again.
In a statement about the campaign Thomas Cook said: “The challenge is huge and we know how much we have to do. But we know we have to start somewhere. Our hope is that by showing our commitment to do something, we will be able to influence others to work with us to cut radically the amount of plastic in the holiday industry, for the sustainable benefit of our employees, the destinations we love and, of course, our customers.”
You can find out more about what Thomas Cook is doing here https://www.thomascookgroup.com/blog/details/thomas-cook-announces-its-noplaceforplastic-campaign