Wet Towels and We Don’t Recycle

     It bothers me when I enter a hotel room and they have little signs all over about how they are attempting to save on water resources.  "A towel on the rack means you’ll use it another day." "This card on the bed means we won’t launder your sheets."  That’s fine with me since I don’t take a new towel every day at home and I certainly don’t change my sheets every day either.  I guess it bothers me for one because I think it has more to do with saving time and money than it does resources and for two because they don’t do other green things that would be easy to do.

     There are a few hotels that have recycling wastebaskets in their hotel rooms and I really appreciate that.  Unfortunately they are in the minority and most places don’t even have a common recycling area where I could bring my plastic bottles to recycle.  As most of you know I’m a coke addict, Diet Coke in 20 ounce bottles to be more specific; Not the 24 ounce bottles(too big), not the 16 ounce bottles(too small), but the 20 ounce bottles(just right).  If I could drink Diet Coke from the tap and save plastic bottles then I would but unfortunately I can’t.  So in the case of traveling I often ride around in a vehicle strewn with Diet Coke bottles until I return home and can place them in the recycling bin.

     The practice of hotels supplying shampoo, conditioner, lotion and soap is very nice especially with flight restrictions on liquids.  But wouldn’t it be nicer if all hotels had dispensers in their showers for shampoo, conditioner and soap? I cringe at the thought of all of those little bottles only half used thrown in with the garbage each day.  I would think switching this practice alone could make a significant difference environmentally.

     I would love it if hotels that recycled advertised their recycling efforts.  It would sway my decision to stay at their establishment almost as much as what type of pop they sell in their vending machines.  And for the record, we recycle atVoyageur.