Carnival Cruise Line presents its new pilot collaboration program that includes Bacardi and the innovative circular economy technology company ecoSPIRITS.
The pilot project will determine whether the reusable containers developed by ecoSPIRITS can be used to serve BACARD® rum on Carnival ships, reducing single-use packaging by 95%. The concept is being tested for three months on three ships operating from Miami: the Carnival Celebration, Carnival Horizon, and Carnival Sunrise.
“As we continue working toward our sustainability goals, the collaborative work of our beverage team is a great example of truly innovative thinking,” said Zachary Sulkes, senior director of beverage operations at Carnival Cruise Line.
To support the new collaboration with Bacardi and Carnival, ecoSPIRITS created a specialized version of its closed-loop glass container format, the ecoTOTE™ 3.0SC Cruise Edition, specifically designed for the maritime environment. Each ecoTOTE replaces approximately four bottles of BACARD® Superior rum, and each one is used, cleaned, and refilled around 100 times, thus creating a closed-loop system.
Rodolfo Nervi, Vice President of Global Safety, Quality and Sustainability at Bacardi, commented: “Innovating in closed-loop packaging has been a priority for us for several years, so launching our first ecoTOTE for BACARD® rum on a Carnival cruise and seeing the doors this trial will open is an incredibly exciting step forward on that journey.”
“We are extremely proud to work with both Bacardi and Carnival on this industry first for the cruise sector. Working with forward-thinking partners like this reinforces our collective focus on sustainable practices and our shared goal of finally eliminating packaging waste across the industry,” said Zdenek Kastanek, Managing Director of ecoSPIRITS USA.
Carnival currently recycles single-use glass items. Each ship in the fleet is equipped with a recycling center, where crew members sort recyclable paper, plastic, and glass. Last year, Carnival processed more than 11 million pounds of recyclable materials.
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