No more plastic cups for Alaska Airlines – The Points Guy

Your ginger ale will not be served in a plastic cup in case you’re flying Alaska Airways.

The Seattle-based service stated it has utterly eradicated plastic cups on its flights, changing them with paper cups. It’s all a part of a sustainability push that the airline says will eradicate the usage of practically 55 million plastic cups a yr.

Alaska will now serve inflight drinks in Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper cups or reusable glassware (in firstclass). The FSC certifies merchandise from “responsibly managed” forests, in response to its web site.

Alaska says the transfer makes it the primary U.S. airline to totally take away single-use plastic cups from its flights. Alaska began phasing out plastic in 2018 as a part of a broader sustainability push that started with eliminating plastic straws and stirrers.

Along with drinks, meals and utensils on flights are additionally usually wrapped and served in plastic. On condition that billions of individuals fly every year, it’s unclear how a lot inflight waste airways generate.

Nonetheless, as conversations surrounding sustainability have come to the forefront, the airline business has sought methods to restrict inflight waste. Shortly after Alaska introduced it will discontinue plastic straws and stirrers, different main U.S. airways like American Airways, Delta Air Traces and United Airways took comparable steps.

On the time, American vowed to make use of alternate options to plastic flatware and stirrers in its lounges. United stated it will exchange plastic straws and stirrers with ones made out of bamboo. Delta introduced plans to take away different single-use objects reminiscent of utensils, wrappers, stirrers and straws.

As for Alaska, it has launched a slew of sustainability initiatives throughout the previous few years, like serving Boxed Water on flights and inspiring passengers to fill their very own water bottles earlier than boarding.

Alaska additionally stated it goals to work towards reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 via quite a lot of methods, reminiscent of increasing its use of sustainable aviation gas.