| For the hospitality industry, the waste created by daily
operations is an ongoing challenge. In addition to incurring
the costs of waste disposal, hotels need to also allocate
valuable back-of-the house space for waste to be stored and
sorted. There are other concerns as well, namely the health
and safety of those coming into contact with the waste, and
the noise created by waste compaction and collection. |
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| Much of the waste created in hotels
is generated from within the kitchen (organic food waste,
packaging, aluminum cans, glass bottles, corks and cooking
oils), or from the housekeeping department (cleaning materials
and plastic packaging). Waste is not only created in guest
rooms but also in public areas, hotel gardens (engine oils,
pesticides, paints and preservatives to grass and hedge trimmings)
and offices (toner cartridges, paper and cardboard waste).
And refurbishment and renovation projects undertaken at the
hotel contribute further to the waste generated by the property. |
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| For hotels, a good waste management strategy not only results
in greater operational efficiencies, it also helps conserve
energy and water. Waste elimination at source and recycling
help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the manufacturing
stage; these practices also keep waste out of the landfill,
thus reducing landfill methane emissions as well. Recycling
one tonne of office paper creates 95 percent less air pollution
and uses about 60 percent of the energy needed to produce
the same amount of paper from trees. Recycling one aluminium
can saves enough energy to run a television set for three
hours. |
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| The larger benefits associated with good waste management
practices, and certainly the huge potential for reducing operational
costs, have generated much attention from within the hospitality
industry. Numerous hotels, big and small, are implementing
waste reduction programs with great success. At least 22 of
the Fairmont hotels around the world get their cooking oil
converted into forms of bio-fuel, which are then used to power
the properties’ shuttle buses and on-property equipment,
including golf course maintenance equipment and vineyard equipment.
Taj Hotels’ Jai Mahal Palace in Jaipur, Rajasthan gets
its kitchen and garden waste made into feed for its biogas
plants. |
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| As the industry is able to better assess its environmental
impact, hotels are likely to come up with more creative solutions
for waste reduction. We also expect to see hotels increasingly
lean toward suppliers/vendors who provide environmentally
friendly materials and equipment, and to whom the hotels can
hand back dry waste for recycling. |
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| ECOTEL’s Waste Management effort is centred upon the 3Rs of reduce, recycle and reuse: |
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Reduce waste production through waste elimination at source |
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Reduce the toxicity or negative impacts of the generated waste |
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Reuse the materials recovered from the waste stream in their current forms |
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Recycle, compost or recover materials for use as direct or indirect inputs to new products |
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Recover energy by sending waste to incinerators or other waste handling facilities |
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| ECOTEL will set up policies and procedures for handling waste and recoverable material including separation, collection, composting, incineration and land filling and establish training programmes as part of the overall ECOTEL training schedule. ECOTEL will monitor waste management over time and modify the system to optimise it for the property in question. |
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The Orchid
Mumbai |
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Rodas
Mumbai |
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Lagoona
Lonavala |
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Hotel Gautam
Mahabaleshwar |
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The Uppal’s Orchid
Delhi |
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Cabbana Orchid
Phagwara |
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The Fern
Jaipur |
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The Beach Orchid
Kollam |
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