Corporate bits | Sands China halts use of plastic straws

Sands China Ltd. has discontinued its use of plastic straws at all its properties, in an effort to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics. 

The company’s ban on its use of plastic straws went into effect on Tuesday and will eliminate the use of 2.2 million plastic straws each year, as cited in a statement by the gaming operator.

“This ban on plastic straws, along with other plastic-reduction measures, will have a significant impact on our sustainability efforts, resulting in a greener Macau,” said Mark McWhinnie, senior vice president of resort operations and development for Sands China Ltd

Those other measures include a plan to progressively replace hotel rooms’ single-use bathroom amenities with refillable dispensers. Implementation is scheduled to begin early this year.

Sands China has also redesigned the complimentary bottles of water supplied to rooms and suites, resulting in 3 million fewer bottles of water provided per year.  

Additionally, the company is installing filtered water dispensers in public areas of its properties on a trial basis.

Melco installs large solar power system

Melco Resorts & Entertainment collaborated with a local SME to install over 18,000 solar photovoltaic panels, covering close to 30,000 square meters of rooftop space at the City of Dreams and Studio City.

Once fully operational, the system will have the capacity to generate a total of nearly 7.7 million kWh of energy per year, the gaming operator said in a statement.

Each year, the system is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 6,000 tons.

Sam Liu, director of Business Development at Man Io Energy, said, “We are thrilled as a local small and medium enterprise to have the opportunity to collaborate with Melco on this pioneering sustainability project for Macau’s gaming and hospitality industry.”