Accommodation providers such as hotels, B&Bs, Inn’s, and hostels need to keep up with the standard demand of their guests. For that reason, most places offer a variety of items to their guests to ensure they have a great and comfortable time.

This creates a massive amount of rubbish, especially single-use plastic items. From the little cotton buds or single-use toothbrushes to the daily water bottle and all the extra tiny small plastic bags to keep all nicely separated. Thanks to upcoming stricter laws in a few countries, these single-use items will be soon hopefully a part of history. But why wait till the government is cracking down on plastic pollution and its origin?

You as an accommodation owner or manager can already make the change today!

Most owners and managers moan about the cost of such a switch, without calculating for the long run.

Following we listed simple ways to reduce and even eliminate the need for single-use plastic items for your accommodation and even explain how it will bring you extra revenue and fewer expenses:

1. Get rid of the daily guest water bottle!

Offer instead glass water bottles in the rooms. These days osmosis water filter systems are very affordable at the purchase and even cheaper to run with a frequent filter exchange. Refill daily the guest room water bottles and save the permanent cost of purchasing the single-use water bottles.

Another great option is to purchase reusable steel water bottles with your logo and include them in the hotel room rate. these bottles start as cheap as $3 when bought in quantity. This gives you on top a huge exposure and free advertising because your guest will reuse the bottle in many travels to come.

Check out the concept of “#RefillNotLandfill” which took of in Cambodia in 2016 and is now already expanding into 8 countries around the globe and growing!

2. Rethink your bathroom amenities!

All the plastic waste will be used for a maximum of 1 or 2 days in your hotel room by your guests. toothbrushes, combs, cotton buds, tiny shampoo and body wash bottles. In London alone are over 1500 hotels with a room amount from as small as 10 to over 1000 rooms in a single hotel. This gives you an average of 750,000 rooms for every single night. This means 1.5 million toothbrushes, 1.5 million combs, and 3 million tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles.

Today, there are plenty of alternatives available, such as:

• Bamboo combs
• Bamboo toothbrushes with charcoal or fiber bristles
• Washing bars for body wash, shampoo, and soap or simple refillable dispensers
• Bamboo cotton buds

If you offer your guests plastic items such as shower caps and razors, notify them they can receive such items at the reception with an the explanation why you offer them only on request. Most guests have their own razors these days and they will understand your effort to reduce the plastic impact, which creates a positive attitude, and your guest will start recommending your property.

3. Make all laundry washable!

Why do hotels still give plastic laundry bags to their guests these days? First of all, they cost you as a hotel operator constant money for a 5-minute use. Why not offer washable cotton bags which you simply throw into the laundry and can easily reuse the bag multiple times. some of your guests also will like such kinds of souvenirs from their stay, so you can easily offer these for purchase with a markup.

4. Change to local tea and coffee options!

Nearly every hotel offers free coffee and tea stations in the rooms. Mostly these are packed in tiny packages. There as tea usually comes in paper bags, the ready-to-drink coffee mix sachets are often a plastic and aluminum mix. To avoid this you could real coffee grounds and a simple french press (coffee plunger). The real coffee doesn’t just taste way better, it also is cheaper for you as a hotelier, and it improves the guest experience by offered real coffee instead of the chemical coffee bomb.

5. Skip the single-packed refreshing towel!

A lot of hotels have single-packed refreshing towels in the rooms. The more economic and way personalized option would be to offer small washable cold face towels to your guest when they arrive at your hotel. You also can easily fragrance the towels with a destination typical scent by adding a few natural oils to the water when moisturizing the towels before them rolling up and placing them in the fridge. These will skyrocket your guest experience and service and it helps the environment and reduce your expenses.

6. Get rid of the plastic straw!

A lot of guests enjoy their holidays’ long drinks and fancy cocktails around the pool or hotel bar. The easiest way to avoid plastic straws is to simply not offer them drinks. But in certain situations or cocktails, the straw seems to be a must. Offer instead of the plastic polluter, stainless steel, or paper straws, which decompose in nature.

7. Purchase environmentally friendly!

Every accommodation operation comes with a busy kitchen. Hotel guests enjoying buffet or set menu breakfasts, lunch and high teas, and a nice dinner. Let your chefs and purchase team know, to avoid products and produce with unnecessary packaging and plastic wrappings. Most supermarket fruit and vegetable products come often extra plastic-wrapped which costs extra and creates more waste. Most of the time a stroll to the local market gets you fresh local produce for a better price and less waste pollution. It is also important to inform your delivery suppliers about your less plastic waste policy and to request less wrapped and packed products.

By following or adopting these simple and effective points you will not only reduce your plastic waste impact but also will decrease your daily expenses and create more satisfied and conscious customers, which will spread the word about your effort. As industry professionals we must lead into a cleaner and sustainable future, to guarantee a great holiday destinations for future generations to come.

Author: Norman Stankewitz