Celebrate Earth Day by Travelling Green
Well as usual, there’s been a big gap between blogs. My apologies. Homework has really taken over this year and when I do get any free time I like to get away with my family. Whenever we travel we usually get accommodations with a kitchen which means we have a number of containers that need to be recycled by the end of our visit. These days, more and more hotels have “green” programs that give you the option of declining housekeeping so that your towels aren’t whisked away after just one use and you keep the sheets on your bed for more than one night. It’s a great start but there’s a lot more that needs to be done. Hotels need to provide more recycling options for people to get rid of their waste. If you’re lucky, you might get a “blue bin” garbage type can in your room but I often wonder if they actually recycle the things people leave in there and if they only have recycling for one type of item e.g. glass or tin, and anything else you put in the bin actually winds up in the garbage.
This year when we travelled to a city we had been to before there were a lot more recycling bins and lots of different kinds of bins than I ever remember there being five years ago. And they weren’t just at the hotel we stayed in, they were in more public places than ever before. It was so exciting to know that change was happening. When we visited places and tourist sites without recycling we just carried around the things that could be recycled until we got back to our accommodations at the end of the day.
Whenever we leave a place that we have stayed we usually get follow-up emails asking us to rate our visit and there’s always a chance to make comments about what could be improved on. Our family always comments on the recycling, or maybe I should say, the lack of recycling and we make suggestions for what that could look like in the future and I would encourage you and your family to do the same.
We don’t really care if we get a $5.00 voucher from a hotel (which, by the way, we probably won’t use) as a reward for being “green”. We’re “green” because it’s the right thing to do and the least we can do while we’re away. But if that’s what it takes to get people to take action, great. Hopefully, one day, the “green” program will be routine and instead of asking visitors to call the front desk if they want to decline new linens every day, they’ll have to call, and be charged, to have their sheets cleaned after just one night.
Until then, you can choose a hotel that’s actually green certified from the environmentally friendly bath products it uses to key card energy control systems that monitor lights and temperature to low flow shower heads and toilets and know that you don’t have to leave your green habits at home.