Buy an eco-friendly cloth shopping bag from The Royal Market and help Royal Resorts in its mission of protecting the environment. Decisions like saying no to a plastic bag or straw, switching to a reusable water bottle and recycling trash can help reduce mankind’s dependence on plastic and lead to a cleaner future. We can all do our part.
Just one person using a reusable shopping bag in their lifetime means preventing 22,000 plastic bags or more from polluting the environment. Imagine how many more would be stopped if we all used cloth carrier bags?
In addition to eco-friendly shopping bags at the resort stores, Royal Resorts is doing a lot more to reduce the use of plastics. Plastic straws are no longer served in drinks at the restaurants and bars and the next step is to use less plastic cutlery.
The Royal Market is selling disposable plates, cups and cutlery that are biodegradable as an alternative to plastic and polystyrene brands.
Royal Resorts has a trash recycling program. There are recycling trashcans throughout the resorts and special bins in the villas so that guests can separate their plastic, glass, aluminum and cardboard waste.
Plastic and all other waste suitable for recycling is collected and sold as “trash for cash” to raise money for the Royal Resorts Foundation’s charitable causes: conservation, children’s education, cancer screening and treatment for women on a low income, physiotherapy for children with motor and neurological disorders and employee emergency relief. In 2017, 311 tons of waste were recycled, representing US$13,600 for the Foundation.
The plastic tide
Did you know that 70 percent of all the garbage in the oceans is plastic? Plastic carrier bags, bottles, packaging, straws, fishing nets and even cling film find their way into rivers, on to our coasts and ultimately into the oceans. Only nine percent of all the plastic produced worldwide has been recycled. Scientists estimate that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish.
There are vast floating patches of garbage in our oceans, of which the most famous is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is twice the size of Texas, three times the size of France and it is still growing.
Seabirds, sea turtles and other marine life can become entangled in plastic; suffer horrific injuries or mistake floating plastic bags for prey, such as squid or jellyfish, with fatal consequences. Plastic is lethal to marine life.
Over time, plastic breaks down into minute particles called micro-plastics that enter the food chain, killing or seriously weakening marine life and birds. Plastic waste and micro plastics are now being found in the most pristine and remotest areas of our oceans like the Arctic and Antarctic and in the deepest ocean trenches including the Mariana Trench in the Pacific and the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean.
