The management, staff and even the guests of Old Edwards Inn each want to do their part in the war against plastic, with the hotel opting to buckle down on its recycling efforts.
Old Edwards Hospitality Group President Richard Delany said the movement was initiated by the hotel’s guests.
“Guests choose where they stay based on whether that hotel is sustainable,” Delany said. “The employees want it and the guests want it. We’ve always recycled glass and cardboard, and wanted to take the next step.”
Delany called the plastics recycling movement a “super-hot topic,” among hotels and resorts with many reacting as quickly as possible.
“Our footprint on the world is huge and we can either ignore it or act on it,” he said. “We are acting on it en masse. Many of us are trying to lead the industry in a change to be sustainable and lower our carbon footprint wherever possible.”
Old Edwards Hospitality Group and its hotel association, Relais and Chateaux, consist of some of the top 580 independent hotels around the world.
“Plastics is the buzz word in today’s world,” Delany said. “I can’t control the rest of the world but we’re going to do our part.”
Delany offered some statistics for consideration.
“OEHG used 186,432 plastic water bottles last year between OEHG and the club – mostly us,” he said. “That is 510 bottles per day. I had to check my math because I could not believe this number.”
The number figures out to be an average of 2.44 bottles of water per room per day, factoring 100 percent occupancy at all three hotels, creating 3,728 pounds of plastic created in 2019.
“Once I started adding up the numbers it was terrifying,” Delany said.
It’s not just the bottled water that generates the enormous amounts of plastic, Delany said.
“We also used 127,000 of the small one-use soap and conditioner bottles last year.”
OEI appreciates and understands the urgency to rein in its consumption of plastic and has put its recycling efforts at the forefront of hotel policy.
“I am sure you understand that this is not as easy as it seems when you are referring to luxury hotel standards,” he said. “There is a perception that luxury and sustainability to not go hand in hand, but we disagree. Many in our family of Relais properties are implementing, or have implemented, many of the changes we are currently trying to implement now.”
From installing purified water dispensers similar to what is seen in airports to reusable aluminum bottles bearing the Old Edwards log for guests to use at these dispensers, plastic water bottles will become a thing of the past.
“Shortly we will be discontinuing our plastic bottle usage altogether – everywhere, Delany said. “By fall we will have installed large format bulk soap and conditioner dispensers in all guest room bathrooms and will eliminate our one use small bottles which end up half used and in the trash.”
Delany added, even the aluminum Nespresso brand coffee pods will be recycled and turned into bikes and other objects.
Some additional recycling initiatives undertaken by OED include:
• Paper recycling – all scrap paper is shredded and saved and picked up weekly by a recycling company
• All cardboard and bottles are picked up by J & B disposal
“We no longer order newspapers for every single guest room and offer them in public areas and as requested as 70 percent ended up in the trash,” Delany said
• Used soap is gathered and sent to Clean the World for recycling and is given to third world countries.
• LED bulbs have been. installed throughout the resort.