Use resources efficiently in your hotel

Material efficiency and reducing your waste are directly linked. If you are more efficient with materials in your hotel, less waste will be produced.

There are many ways to improve material efficiency to reduce waste. First you should identify materials used in your hotel. These will be in areas such as guest bedrooms, kitchen, office materials, bar/restaurant and maintenance. Also establish the kinds of waste you produce and identify whether this waste is hazardous or must be separated from other waste.

Green procurement

You should consider green procurement. This simply means choosing to buy products and services for your business that are less harmful to the environment. It includes buying products made from recycled materials and buying goods locally to reduce your carbon footprint. Examples include environmentally friendly versions of stationary, toilet paper, cleaning products and electronics.

Reduce waste of office consumables

As well as procuring green products for office use, there are many ways to reduce the environmental impact of your workplace. Adjust the default setting of printers to print double-sided and black and white. You can also encourage electronic filing instead of printing. Consider using email to send customer invoices and staff pay slips, which will also save on postage money. You could remove general waste desk bins and replace with a recycling station for the whole office. See office resource efficiency.

Cut waste of bedroom and cleaning consumables

You can replace single use toiletries with refillable containers. Half-used toilet rolls from guest bedrooms can be used in staff and communal toilets. Buy cleaning products in bulk and refill small reusable containers such as spray bottles.

Kitchen consumables resource efficiency

You should consider offering a range of restaurant portion sizes to reduce food waste. Ask suppliers to deliver goods in reusable/returnable packaging and serve food with reusable utensils. Dispose of cooking oil responsibly through a recycling firm to avoid pollution. Unserved food can be donated to a food bank.

Waste management in your hotel

You could donate unwanted hotel furniture and IT equipment to charity as opposed to disposing to a landfill. Improve waste segregation for recycling with clearly marked separate bins. Ensure staff are trained to understand waste segregation. Use a compactor or baler to reduce empty space in skips and bins.