Hotel Rooms Won’t Be The Same This Summer Under New Illinois Law

A slew of new laws will go into effect soon.

Either you are this person or you know someone who is: the one who takes the hotel's mini-bottles. The little shampoos, conditioners, body washes. One of my friends really has a collection of these from hotels in her bathroom.

Now, her favorite travel hobby (and quite possibly yours) is about to be squished this summer if you're staying in Illinois

The law was passed in September and, as far as hotels with 50+ rooms are concerned, it goes into effect July 1st. It is the Small Single-Use Plastic Bottle Act. It bans hotels from providing those single-use plastic shampoo/body wash bottles to hotel guests.

The Deets: New Illinois Law Forbids Your 'Souvenirs' From Hotels

Now, the hotel can give you, the guest, a mini-shampoo/body wash/plastic toiletry bottle of whatever if you ask the desk for it. But even then, it has to be somewhere "other than a sleeping room or public hotel bathroom".

The Illinois Environmental Council claims that Illinois is the first state in the Great Lakes region to ban the use of single-use bottles in hotel rooms.

According to NBC Chicago, Hyatt Hotels (which is owned by Governor Pritzker's family) phased out single-use plastic bottles in their hotels. Other hotels have done the same, like Marriott eliminating the bottles in 2019-2020.

The new Illinois law also applies to all guest rooms and public bathrooms that have the mini-bottles in them, specifically bottles smaller than 6 ounces and aren't intended to be used again.