Environmental Planner--My First Mission

Now that I am no longer teaching, I thought it was time to take on a new career. I have no training or schooling, and my title is self-appointed, but I am now, unofficially, an environmental planner! My job is to inform the public (or anyone reading my blog) of ways public places can reduce their amount of wastefulness. My first assignment…hotels.

Hotels are great. They allow me to have everything I need within a ten foot radius. I can watch tv in bed and possibly reach for a cold beverage from the mini fridge a couple feet away. I recently spent the weekend at the plush four-star Hyatt in Los Angeles, making me ponder hotels environmental awareness.

I have been impressed with many hotels recent plunge into waste reduction. Within the last five years or so, hotel beds have begun sporting signs stating that, unless a note is left on the bed, the linens will not be changed. Yay! Why it took over two hundred years for American hotels to realize that bed sheets don’t need to be changed daily, I don’t know, but better late than never. Hotels are realizing that the same is true with bath towels—guests can actually reuse them!
As I was staying at a hotel this last time, I figured out some of my own hotel improvements. Here are a few.

• Install more towel racks/bars. I think the reason hotel patrons don’t reuse towels in their rooms is because there’s nowhere to hang them. If a towel is still wet or I can’t figure out which one is mine sitting on the bathroom counter, I’m less likely to want to use it again. Add a couple pegs to the wall and voilà!—people will be more willing to reuse their towel.
• Have dispensers in the bathtub for liquid body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. [Side note: and conditioner should be standard in hotel rooms now—who doesn’t use it?] Instead of wasting half a bar of soap each hotel visit, hotels should have liquid body wash. The best way to store it would if they attached it to the tub wall where it can be refilled by the hotel staff. Same goes for the shampoo and conditioner. I’m guessing that left behind partially-used bottles of shampoo are tossed by the staff. Even if you’re one to take your half-used miniature bottles home with you not to be wasteful, are you really in need of another one--don’t you already have a closetful?
• Have liquid hand soap by the sink. I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, before liquid hand soap was a staple in American households, but now, the thought of sharing a slimy waterlogged bar makes me want to gag. And, again, either you leave your stay with leftover soap that you toss, or you run out a day early and open a fresh bar.
• Hotels should continue to use glass drinking cups and ceramic mugs versus the disposable variety. Switching to the kind you can pitch was a step in the wrong direction for hotels.
• Create a sign for the hotel room door reading No Cleaning Needed Today. I don’t clean my house daily—why do I need my hotel room to be? This new sign would let the hotel staff know that you won’t need their services at all that day. When you put the Privacy sign on the door to avoid the room being cleaned (which is what I do), I’m guessing they need to keep checking when they can clean your room.

Until hotels listen to me, I am taking actions into my own hands:

• bringing my own hand soap for the sink
• bringing my own body wash (or bar soap in a plastic container), shampoo, and conditioner for the shower
• finding a spot to hang my towel, even if it’s outside on the balcony chair
• using the same lousy paper cup during my stay
• putting the privacy sign up my whole hotel visit so none of my linens are changed or unneeded chemicals sprayed in the bathroom

What do you do?

Join me next week, as I take on restaurants...