The tourism and hospitality industry is one of the fastest growing economic sectors globally, which is proving to have a serious, negative impact on the environment.

It is becoming increasingly essential that hotels and businesses have sustainability programmes in place.

Verde Hotels is taking this approach and has had significant, positive results around waste minimisation and management strategies and processes.

Dawie Meiring, Group Systems and Sustainability Manager at Verde Hotels, says, “Our primary objective is to ensure that the properties we develop and operate have systems in place to minimise the consumption of natural resources, avoid and lower the generation of waste, reduce, re-use, recycle and recover waste where possible, and, as a last resort, treat and safely dispose of waste.”

It is important to inform, educate and get the buy-in of staff, stakeholders, guests and the community to support and sustain environmental initiatives at ground level.

The hotel actions and encourages responsible procurement, buys in bulk and uses eco-friendly alternatives. “We have also installed split bins in all 145 rooms and at strategic points throughout the hotel along with educational signage and green tips. Our guests are rewarded with a unique in-house currency called ‘Verdinos’ when they participate in correctly using the bins or any of the hotel’s other green initiatives.”

Excellent results

Dawie states that the figures for Hotel Verde Cape Town are phenomenal, having exceeded their waste-to-land fill targets of 85% set in 2013 to 97.06% in 2018.

“Of the 2.2 kg of waste generated per guest per stay, only 64 grams could not be diverted from landfill. It isn’t just not recyclable but is also not reusable, compostable or upcyclable – but we are actively searching for new ways of re-purposing this waste too.”

Year on year the hotel has also achieved a 36% reduction in waste production which equates to a saving of 71 tonnes of waste not being generated.

Aligning with the right partners

To bolster in-house efforts it is a good idea for hotels to align themselves with waste contractors who understand the complexities of waste management, who comply with environmental legislation and are able to offer advice on the most environmentally friendly and cost-efficient methods of disposal.

Leslie van Zyl, Commercial Operation Manager at Waste Plan, which specialises in waste management and provides on-site staff, says, “We sort and recycle as much as possible before disposing only the minimum waste to landfill.”

Zero to Land Fill Organics is a company which provides training, educational material and separation systems for the setting up of organic waste separation programmes to business, as well as a service to collect and compost source-separated food waste, paper towel (from bathrooms) and garden waste.

Managing Director Melanie Jones emphasises the importance of recycling organic waste, food waste in particular. “By source-separating organic waste from other waste streams, the contamination of plastic, paper, glass and metals is prevented, increasing recycling percentages to over 90%.”

Meiring adds: “Do you know that up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in the dustbin can be recycled; that a recycled plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for three hours; that while certain plastics decompose between 10 and 1000 years, others never really do; recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials and that the energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will power a 100-watt light bulb for almost an hour?”

As Mario Delicio, owner of Hotel Verde says, “Waste is value for Verde Hotels, but the best is waste that is avoided completely.”