Centara Hotels & Resorts, Thailand’s leading hotel operator, is marking this year’s World Environment Day (5th June) and Ocean Day (8th June) events with a month-long campaign to raise awareness of the scourge of plastic waste while encouraging guests and staff to join the effort to rid beaches of discarded plastic trash.

The initiative features sculpted sea creature-cum-trash-bins named POP — short for “Plastic Only, Please” — that guests can “feed” the plastic waste they pick up in and around the beach.

Pop will be popping up at 12 Centara properties around Thailand and Maldives. Each time the plastic-hungry sea life creatures fill up with collected plastic trash, Centara’s waste management teams will remove the contents, weigh the trash and prepare it for sorting and delivery to local recycling facilities. Rather than adding more plastic garbage to further exacerbate local land pollution and fill nearby landfills, these plastic eating creatures will provide a first-line waste management filter, diverting reusable plastic materials to be recycled into new items instead of going straight to the garbage.

MEDIA CONTACT: Pornchanok Thongrungrot (Pao), Corporate Public Relations Manager – International, Centara Hotels & Resorts, Tel. +66 (0)2769 1234 Ext. 6733, Email: pr.centara@chr.co.th