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Save the Earth -- Later

by Randy Cassingham

The hospitality industry is incredibly wasteful of natural resources. According to the ecology in hospitality web site ECOnomically Sound, the "average hotel (150 guestrooms) uses as many resources in one week as 100 families do in one year."

Some hotels really try to be more "green". Some say they're green but aren't, and it seems to me hypocrisy about being good is far worse than just not being good.

It's almost unfair to single out a single hotel on this one, since I've seen it so many places, but the Fiesta Inn Resort really takes the cake: this Tempe, Arizona, (read: crowded dry desert) hotel didn't buy "promise cards" from some hotel supply catalog, but instead, they printed their own card:

photo of the save the earth hotel card
Here's what the card says, complete with bold red text to really drive their hypocrisy (er... Earth-saving message) home:
PLEASE
REUSE

Your
Towels

We are doing our part to preserve the beautiful desert environment and invite you to help us conserve water by using your towels more than once. Doing so will also reduce the amount of detergent waste that is recycled in our community.

Please hang your towels up if you wish to participate in this water conservation program... if you choose not to participate, simply leave your towels on the floor.

No problem: I don't wash my towels at home after using them just once, so why ask hotels do it? I'm happy to try to reduce my impact on the desert by doing my part to save water, so I carefully hung my towels up and went out to my meeting.

When I got back to my room that afternoon, sure enough: the maid had taken my towels down and replaced them with freshly laundered ones. That's "doing their part"?!

And it wasn't just me: the next day, back at the conference, I asked several others if it happened to them, too. Yep: they hung up their towels, but they were replaced anyway.

Such daily laundering does use huge amounts of water and cleaning chemicals, uses significant electricity for washing and drying, and generates a lot of waste. And it adds a lot of extra wear and tear to the towels, meaning they have to be replaced sooner. And it slows down the housekeeper. A towel and sheet reuse program saves about $1.50 per day per room for hotels; at the Fiesta Inn Resort, which has 270 rooms, that translates to nearly $150,000 per year in wasted money, let alone wasted water that people around here need to drink. Let alone wasted electricity, and the pollution that's pumped into the air generating it.

That is an awful lot of needless waste. But here they are trumpeting in Big Red Type how ecological they are while they're not actually doing it. Shame on them for the ridiculous waste. But double shame on them for patting themselves on the back while doing it.

>:-(

Randy Cassingham is the author of This is True and the True Stella Awards, and is the founder of Cranky Customer.

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Posted April 7, 2006 8:00 AM |

Comments

As someone who spends each week in a hotel of some sort or other, I can attest to the validity of your claim. While many hotels have a similar card, the ones that actually do adhere to the "towels on the rack" claim are few and far between. Another beef of mine: the ones that throw out your bars of soap and partially used shampoo bottles each day. I'd like to see a study of how much could be conserved if they left you use the same soap and shampoo all week. Granted the shampoo bottle usually doesn't last the whole week but the soap will, especially some of the chains that provide larger than normal bars. I could go on and on but you get my drift.

Posted by: Lewis Furry | April 7, 2006 8:56 AM

I totally agree with you. I, too, have seen this in hotels and have had my "saved" towels replaced. However, what amuses me is the photo on the card. The cactus seems to be giving the reader the "finger". Should this be construed as a subtle commentary on how they really feel about this conservation project?

Posted by: Amy Deitz | April 7, 2006 9:07 AM

So, did you ask about the absuridity, or make a comment or complain to the management of the hotel?? If not, then putting this story on the site does not really serve any purpose other than to potentially amuse your readers. I would have been much more interested in what a management reply would have been - and not just the local desk manager but the corporate CEO. After all, there is no indication of where the "blame" lies. Just maybe the corporate CEO would like to know so he/she could correct the situation!!

I guess you haven't read the site's Mission Statement -- the "About this Site" link is on the navbar. This site isn't JUST a place for readers to be amused, but is also a public message to the companies involved. So far, none have cared enough to post a reply, even though they're invited to. -rc

Posted by: John Morse | April 7, 2006 9:09 AM

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