HVS's "Forecasting Hotel Room Requirement by 2021" report highlights the estimated requirement of 343,000 hotel rooms by 2021, directly showing the huge demand for hotels in the coming days. This kind of requirement also increases the volume of waste from hotels. Hotels consume a large amount of resources and produce a significant amount of waste. Types of waste produced by hotels can include packaging, amenity containers, waste water from toilets, kitchens, and laundries.
Food waste is a big problem in the world today.
One third of the food produced in the world is wasted each year. The hotel industry produces an average of 289,700 tonnes of waste globally each year, including 79,000 tonnes of food waste - one of the major challenges for both the hotel industry and society.
Work on a food waste management plan is very important as hotels produce a lot of waste. The problem of food waste is becoming more complex, so it is the need of the hour to work in the concern area.
Can hotel industry be plastic-free ever?
’The hotel industry is just waking up to the problem of plastic waste, but this is a two-way street. Hotels rely on this convenient, affordable material just as much as travelers do. The real struggle is turning newfound global awareness and municipal legislation into effective and swift action.’
-- Sarah Enelow-Snyder is a travel journalist for Skift.
The majority of waste produced by hotels is plastic waste alongside food waste; plastic pollution is a big issue globally. Many hotels use plastic because it is so cheap, but plastic alternatives can be costly. This means that hotels may need to spend more money to avoid plastics. Few companies want that expense, and those that are willing to increase their cost may pass it on to the guest.
According to National Geographic, 91 percent of plastic waste isn't recycled, 73 percent of beach litter is plastic, and nearly one million plastic beverage bottles are sold every minute worldwide. A plastic bottle can last for 450 years in the marine environment; however, it will slowly fragment into smaller and smaller pieces which eventually end up microscopic but never truly go away.
More hotels are taking the first steps in reducing their plastic use, as well as encouraging their guests to do so, as the world becomes more aware of the issues surrounding the amount of waste and plastic pollution.
New York State is expected to ban single-use plastic bags in 2020, Thailand is aiming for 2022, and India, the world’s second-most populous country, is working in stages toward a broader ban in 2022. These bans are not complete eradications of single-use plastics, which would be very unrealistic at this point, but they rather target specific types and provide a push in a sustainable direction.
"In 2018, IHCL pledged to phase out single-use plastic from all its hotels," said a spokesperson. "In the first phase, many of our hotels reduced the usage of plastic by replacing wrapped dry amenities in rooms, such as toothbrush, shaving kit etc. with bulk dispensers." IHCL has launched its first zero one-time use plastic resort, Taj Exotica Resort & Spa, Andamans with sustainable practices inherent in its design and services.
Some hotels have launched a ‘Save Water’ initiative to cut down on water wastage, while Accor is already in the process of switching over to glass bottles in the rooms as well as for MICE activities across its 50+ properties in India, just like most other hotels are doing to cut harmful single-used plastic usage. ”
Inevitable are changes and challenges.
"Change management and communications are issues of operations," points out Mukerji. This involves the right internal communication, training, and resource materials to help guide that change.
One of the key challenges hotels face in reducing plastic consumption is finding suitable and readily available alternatives that don’t lead to unintended environmental consequences. "Challenges come with good decisions and these could be in the form of operational, technological or even behavioral challenges," as Mukerji puts it. There are larger (and several) questions. What are the health and environmental concerns?”
The accurate information regarding alternative resources is the major challenge: where is it from? How is it made? What are the health and environmental concerns? From what is it made? Who makes it? How far does it travel and how is it packaged? How is it used? What is needed to maintain it? How is it maintained? How much does it cost to maintain? How is it recycled, and how is it disposed of? What does the sentence break down into? What does that do?
No easy answers are available for the question where will it go?, or at least none that can provide viable solutions in the short term. So are we really replacing one waste by another in the environment without actually knowing the repercussions for same, is the point that remain unanswered.
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