Destination briefing
Single-Use Plastic Rules and What They Reach in a Hotel Supply Chain
Every few months a property asks whether a PVC key card counts as a single-use plastic under the Dominican rules. It is a fair question and it deserves a precise answer rather than a marketing one, because the regulatory direction is real and the product's position inside it is genuinely nuanced.
What the rules cover, as reported.
Reforms to Law 225-20 are reported as reducing the environmental impact of single-use plastic waste, with prohibitions on foam cups and comparable items taking effect from December. Separately, Law 98-25 on solid waste is reported as establishing that single-use plastic bags will no longer be distributed free of charge in supermarkets and businesses, with a one-year transition for the measure to take effect.
The consistent thread in the reporting is disposable food-service and retail items: bags, foam cups, straws, containers. That is where the regulatory pressure is currently pointed.
Where a key card actually sits.
A room key card is not a disposable food-service item and is not typically treated as one. It is a durable good with a service life measured in guest cycles rather than in a single use, and at a property with a collection process at check-out it is reissued many times before it leaves the building.
That said, the honest picture includes the cards that never come back. At an all-inclusive with a week-long average stay, a meaningful share of replaced volume is cards that went home in a pocket or a beach bag. Those genuinely are single-use in practice, whatever they are in category — and the way to reduce that number is a collection process and a card guests are willing to hand back, not a change of material.
What this changes about a purchasing decision.
Properties come to this decision with one of three aims, and they lead to different answers. Removing virgin plastic from the order points to recycled PVC, which prints and behaves like the standard card and needs no operational change at all. Signalling something visible to guests points to plant-fibre board, which reads as deliberately non-plastic and does not take a gloss finish. Changing what happens at end of life is the hardest of the three, because it depends on whether a local stream will accept the material — which in most Caribbean destinations it will not.
What we can supply is material composition information for the run we produce. What we do not supply is a recycled percentage, a certification, a degradation outcome or a comparative environmental benefit, because those require evidence for the exact construction and, where they exist at all, they belong in the order record rather than on a website.
What to confirm
- 01
Which of the three aims applies: less virgin plastic, a visible guest signal, or a different end of life.
- 02
Whether the property has a card collection process at check-out, and what its recovery rate actually is.
- 03
How much replaced volume is loss rather than wear — this is usually the larger number.
- 04
Construction: recycled PVC for an invisible switch, plant-fibre board for a visible one.
- 05
Artwork review, since plant-fibre board does not take a gloss finish.
- 06
What documentation the property's own reporting framework requires, and in what form.
Put it in the brief
Separate the regulatory question from the purchasing question. The rules currently reported are aimed at disposable food-service and retail items; the key card decision is driven by what the property is trying to achieve and by how many cards come back, and it should be argued on that basis rather than on a compliance one.
| Aim | Virgin plastic, guest signal, or end of life |
|---|---|
| Collection | Whether cards are recovered at check-out, and the recovery rate |
| Loss rate | Share of replacement driven by cards leaving the property |
| Construction | Recycled PVC, plant-fibre board, standard PVC or wood |
| Artwork | Whether the design depends on a gloss finish |
| Documentation | What the property's reporting framework needs from the supplier |
Sources
- Raíz Climática — Law 225-20 and the reduction of foam and single-use plastics in the Dominican Republic
- En Segundos — foam cups and other plastics prohibited from December
- ECORED — a further step in reducing single-use plastics
Figures cited come from the linked publications and are not our own data. Publication names and record titles stay in their original language.