Carnival Cruise Line, Bacardi and ecoSPIRITS Partner to Reduce Single-Use Glass at Sea

August 29, 2023

A new pilot program is introducing closed-loop packaging to the cruise industry aboard Carnival Cruise Line ships through a collaboration that includes leading family-owned spirits company Bacardi and innovative circular economy technology company ecoSPIRITS.

The pilot will determine if re-usable containers developed by ecoSPIRITS can be used to serve BACARDĺ® rum on Carnival ships, in turn reducing single-use packaging by 95 percent. The concept is being tested for three months on three ships operating from Miami: Carnival Celebration, Carnival Horizon and Carnival Sunrise.

“As we continue to work towards our sustainability goals, the collaborative work of our beverage team, ecoSPIRITS and Bacardi is a great example of thinking in ways that are truly out-of-the-box, or in this case – out-of-the-bottle, to develop new partnerships and practices that further our ongoing efforts,” 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 patent-pending closed loop glass packaging format, the ecoTOTE™ 3.0SC Cruise Edition, specifically for the maritime environment. Each ecoTOTE replaces approximately four bottles of BACARDĺ Superior rum and each one is used, cleaned and refilled approximately 100 times, thereby creating a closed loop system.

The award-winning rum was selected for the pilot because it is among the most-ordered spirits across the fleet and a staple of some of the craft cocktails most popular with Carnival guests. The rum will be transferred from ecoTOTE to serving format using ecoSPIRITS’ SmartPour™ technology. New silver and red BACARDĺ-branded SmartPours will be placed in select bars on the three ships for beverage team members to serve cocktails featuring BACARDĺ Superior rum.