There are some Important rules to follow when flying: Buy your snacks before you get to the airport, always book a window seat and remember to pack your toiletries in 100 ml bottles. Although the latter has been required by law for almost 20 years, people still forget it and the Transportation Security Administration confiscated Liquids worth millions of dollars are transported every day. A US airport is now trying to save confiscated liquids from the trash heap.
Since 2006, passengers on every flight have been required to carry their liquids in bottles smaller than 100 ml, packed in a transparent plastic bag with a capacity of one litre. Some Travelers have not yet learned thisand show up at airports every day with large quantities of liquids that they are not allowed to take through security.
For years, the confiscated liquidsincluding toiletries and the three liters of rum I once saw a traveler take in his carry-on baggage, were thrown in the trash. Now Reagan National Airport in Washington is trying to curb this waste with a pilot project that was launched earlier this year.
As part of the Donate, Don’t Discard project, RNA is working to donate new or nearly new toiletries that confiscated by the TSA to needy people in the local community, reports NBC4 Washington. The program was launched in April and has so far saved more than 2,000 toiletry bottles from the landfill. As NBC4 reports:
“We started in April and have already collected 2,300 items. We have diverted 1,160 pounds of waste from landfills … and that doesn’t even include what we count in August,” said Courtnie Gore, social impact specialist at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
Once a month, airport authorities employees sort all toiletries.
The program provides Airport employees sort Hundreds of discarded bottles every month. Once the toiletries are deemed safe to give to those in need, they are donated to charities like Northwest Community Food. According to NBC4, it is a nonprofit organization that provides fresh produce and hygiene items to individuals and families.
Through the program RNA employees have 1,160 pounds of waste from the landfill, reports NewsweekAnd that’s just the trash collected at a single airport in America. The TSA confiscates liquids at over 500 other locations in the land of the free.
Fortunately, another airport will soon join the fight against this never-ending stream of waste, as Newsweek adds that the “Donate, Don’t Discard” program will soon Expansion to Dulles International Airport as well as.
It is not just liquids that are confiscated by TSA officers at airports, we have some of the strangest items to get through airport security right here. The agency also has a record number of weapons seized at airports last year.
A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.
