Green Hotels

"The Bahia Hotel is dedicated to environmental preservation in the following ways: recycling program for glass, paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, newspaper, and batteries; 80% of the guest rooms have low-flow toilets; water conservation program for guest room sheets and towel laundering; in-house laundry facility went through a January 2007 transformation to save water, gas, and electricity as well as lower the use of detergents and chemicals; use of a Green Seal Certified, non-toxic, biodegradable bathroom cleaner for all guest rooms and public areas; solar heating for swimming pool; corporate-wide program of 20% off for monthly transit passes for employees; recycle ink cartridges; recycle 55-gallon oil drums; takeout containers are not styrofoam; and, dry cleaning service uses eco-friendly solvents."

The Bahia Hotel makes its green and recycling commitment clear.  It occurred to me this year as I have been travelling around a bit, that I feel uncomfortable staying in a place where I am not sure if they have a recycling programme or not. One hotel gave me a few clues because of the way it left me little notes about its practices. I liked that. I felt bad as a room occupant that I could not separate my litter! That's how well trained I am now. I didn't want to be throwing away newspapers and cardboard when I knew they could be going in a recycle bin. As a guest in a hotel you build up quite a pile of recyclables and I want to know these things are being recycled but I am so used to separating my rubbish I want to have containers where I can put my hotel waste. I also want to know, as in the case of Bahia, what the hotel and hotel chain is doing to green up our planet and to reduce our carbon footprint. Some of this is as easy as putting the practices on the website. Some of this needs to be normal practice and advertised. Then there need to be the easy room practices which the hotel informs the guest about, as was the case with the first hotel I stayed in this year. Hotels can make a big difference and recycling and green practices should be normal these days.