The Importance Of Waste Management In The Hotel Industry

The hotel industry produces excessive amount of waste due to it’s nature of work operating 24/7/365 must ensure constant input of resources and management of the output which has a relatively high impact on the environment. According to the Eco Traveler guide it has been reported that the hotels creates almost 1.9 billion pounds of waste each year. On an average, 1 kg of waste is generated by per guest per night in the hotel which can be in the form of paper, plastics and cardboard ( IHEI, 2002). It is also estimated that solid waste per capita generated by the tourists is twice as compared to the local residents (IFC, 2007).

The best strategy for waste management is to practice the three r’s: reduce, reuse and recycle. Hotels must take steps

Another step is to buy the product that can be reused for example rechargeable batteries, cloth laundry bags, and shampoo and soap dispensers as countered to wrapped soaps and shampoo to the individuals. It has been found in a study that about 50-60 percent of waste materials in the hospitality industry can be reused or recycled (Bohdanowicz, 2005). According to a study, most hoteliers are willing to adopt small-scale waste reuse practices for example, converting damaged textiles such as uniforms, torn bed sheets, towels, and banquet linen can be reused as guest room laundry bags, baby bibs, crib number pads, cleaning rags by the hotel itself. Another useful reusing technique includes reusing bottles and glasses for example, beer can be packaged in Kegs, can or bottle. Bottle is reused once after which either it is disposed or recycled. So, if the bottle is refilled for 20 times it then eliminates the need for making 19 more bottle and also environmental effects of material extraction, processing, manufacturing, distribution and recycling. These small-scale changes are easy to implement and effective rather as compared to the larger practices which requires changes on an operational level.(Hatem R. Radwan, Eleri Jones and Dino Minoli, 2010). There are possibilities for some items to be reused. Hotels have started reducing the disposal of furnitures, fixtures and equipments by donating old

The hotel has partnered with “Genießt Uns” (Enjoy Us!): an initiative which inspires to fight the wastage of food alone the production change. In the event thousands of guest has taken part and all the dishes served were produced by using the food that could be otherwise thrown away. The hotel staff supported the brunch and a large press lounge as well as hotel’s own equipment available. The event supported Genießt Uns! backed by WWF, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and the Bundesverband Deutsche Tafel e.V ( Green Hotelier,