American hotels effort to Conserve Water and Energy

I have been away for a week at University of California, Los Angeles. One of my good friends invited me to the graduation ceremony of her daughter in Films and Television at that California premier flagship college in Films, Television and Theater. It was a good time to visit with some of my classmates at Oklahoma State University some of whom I saw last thirty years ago. I stayed for three days at Piccadilly Inn Hotels in Fresno, California, where I was treated to some decency in hospitality. That was however, half of the fun, the other, was seeing in the market place, what American hotels were doing in conserving water and energy. The hotel in collaboration with the Project Planet program ran campaign around their hotel rooms with fliers saying: We invite you to join with us to conserve water by using your linens and towels more than once. In addition to decreasing water and energy consumption, you help us use fewer environmentally harmful chemicals and reduce the amount of detergent waste water that must be recycled within our community. This campaign is estimated to help save thousand of gallons of water and hundreds of gallons of detergent. With a widespread campaign like this, the hotels are bringing to our consciousness the importance of this effort to conserve resources, especially those that we use frequently and occasionally, if not often, wastefully!

The Piccadilly Inn and Hotels in collaboration with the Project Planet want us to: 1) recycle paper, aluminum, cardboard and other items where possible; 2) look for opportunities to be more environmentally friendly; 3) change linens every three days or upon request and towels, only as needed when guest stay more than one night; and, 4) use more environmentally friendly cleansers and detergents, among other things. The American Hotels believe that they are helping change the world through these practices, and would probably save 70, 000 gallons of water and 500 gallons of detergent annually at each medium-sized participating member in this august campaign. This is very heart warming. The hotels, known for the drive to make profit are reflective in their practices, looking at how they do business and see how they can be an instrument of change by encouraging millions of summer travelers who visit their hotels all around the country, to help conserve water and energy.

The question now is what other industry out there is attempting to help us go greener? If you know of others, I would like to hear from you.