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Traveling by airplane can be a stressful experience, especially if you’ve got a long layover, long flight, are a relatively inexperienced traveler or are traveling with kids. I’m always interested to see what airports are doing to enhance the traveler experience. Recently, I saw an article talking about some of the changes that LAX airport has implemented.

LAX Banning Single-Use Water Bottles

LAX announced back at the end of June that they are banning the sale of single-use water bottles.

I only saw the announcement a couple of weeks ago but apparently (As of the June 30, 2023 Facebook post above), it went into effect at the end of June, so it is already in place as of the writing of this post. LAX (as far as I could tell) now becomes the 2nd major airport to ban the sale of single-use water bottles, after SFO, which banned the sale of single-use plastic water bottles in 2019 and included other types of beverages as of 2021.

Why Is LAX Banning Single-Use Water Bottles

The ban on the sale of single-use water bottles is, as you might have guessed, part of a sustainability initiative. LAX falls under the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) commission, and LAWA has a sustainability initiative, including the goal to make its airports entirely zero-waste by 2045. The explanation from the airport authority were that there are plenty of water bottle filling stations throughout the airport, though that is a disputed fact by anyone who is ever actually FLOWN through LAX.

Does the LAX Water Ban Make Sense?

To say that the comments on the Facebook above were not supportive would be an understatement. Here are a few of the comments

To recap, the airport that generates 15.7 metric tons of carbon each day just outlawed plastic bottles

and

There are not ample refill stations in T6, not even close. The ones we do have are not very sanitary either

and

TBIT doesn’t even have functioning water fountains. There is one bottle filler in the food court and it’s not filtered or cold. Bottle fillers were installed pre-security. But even most of those don’t work. Employees don’t want to pay for over-priced water either

Many people were also wondering why you would ban water bottles but not other single-use bottles and cans such as soft drinks or Gatorade. Perhaps that is something that is coming down the road – that’s what SFO did a few years ago – first banned the single-use water bottles and then followed that up with bans on other drinks a few years later.

Personally, I almost never buy or drink from single-use water bottles. Either I am bringing my own water bottle, or I’m drinking out of the water fountains.

(SEE ALSO: Do You Really NEED To Eat And Drink In The Airport?)

So I don’t personally have a problem with this, though it would be a requirement for me that there actually BE sufficient water fountains and water bottle filling stations throughout the airport, something I’m not quite sure is the case at LAX.

The Bottom Line

LAX has recently announced a ban on the sale of single-use water bottles, effective immediately. This ban includes events happening at the airport as well as vending machines. Currently, the ban does not include other bottled drinks outside of water (though that may be coming). It also does not include bottled water from flight services on aircrafts.

What do you think of this new policy at LAX? Leave your thoughts in the comments below


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