Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection, with all plastic straws, water bottles and related single-use items already eliminated from its ships, promised to be entirely single-use plastic free by 2022. The company’s president and CEO Ellen Bettridge said Uniworld is also looking into how to enhance and protect the places and communities it visits.
The river cruise line made the announcement on the fifth anniversary of issuing its own sustainable river cruising guide. In the time since, it lowered its plastic waste by 26,374 kilograms and its paper waste by 110,278 kilograms. Uniworld also reduced its chemical waste by 80 percent in the last two years and its biodegradable waste by 16 percent in the past year.
Uniworld created the sustainable guide with The Travel Foundation and its not-for-profit TreadRight. Bettridge said the company designed it to help the river cruise industry to create a more sustainable future.
The announcement follows a similar one by Uniworld’s parent company The Travel Corporation. The group pledged to ban many single-use plastics at its 40 offices and to eradicate them from all its operations by 2022.
Uniworld, a luxury river cruise line based in Los Angeles, operates itineraries across Europe and in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, India and Egypt. It sails along 23 rivers in 24 countries. Uniworld is a member of the Cruise Lines International Association.
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