Dubai international airport and Dubai world central airport have started phasing out all single use plastics. Dubai international is the busiest international airport in the world with well over 80 million passengers a year, together the two airports have over 90 million passengers a year. As of January the 1st 2020 Dubai’s two airports banned single-use straws, cutlery, polythene bags and food and drink packaging. This ban equates to a lot of plastic as the two airports have over 250 restaurants cafés and shops, that includes the likes of McDonald’s, Starbucks and costa coffee.

Since the announcement was made in June 2019 the Dubai airports have been working with their hospitality partners to overcome the challenges involved in such a big shift. Eugene Barry, EVP Commercial at Dubai Airports was reported as saying ”Among the challenges faced, the biggest is sourcing alternatives for plastic bottles, one of the most frequently used and discarded pieces of single-use plastics. As we work to reduce and ultimately eliminate plastics from our airports”

As part of the initiative Costa coffee are to replace their plastic lined cups with 100% renewable, plant based cups. The lids will be made entirely of wood and paper instead of plastic. Once the technology is in place we could see these cups rolled out to every Costa Coffee worldwide.

The next phase of the plan will take place over the next twelve months when the two airports will replace additional single use plastics in customer spaces and behind the scenes. Additional recycling points will also be added to the airport customer spaces. Perhaps the second busiest international airport in the world Heathrow in London will follow suit in the near future.

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