Let's Talk About It: Housekeeping Legacy

Life after coronavirus shutdowns. Teams are returning with an unbelievable workload on top of the late spring cleaning or re-opening cleaning that will be happening in hotels everywhere!

Cupboards will need to be cleared out, and the unnecessary items being removed will create a considerable amount of waste in addition to the single-use plastics necessary for maintaining hygienic practices as this time.

Where is it all going?

Everything we purchase has a legacy.

One of the biggest lessons I learned working with Locog in 2012 was applying legacy to housekeeping purchases and waste disposal.

With the goal being "zero to landfill", every purchase had to be accounted for in terms of its disposal before it was bought.

I needed bed extensions, lots of them—100s of fabric-covered foam blocks for the bed ends. My average guest height had just risen 10 inches. Rowers are tall!

What happened to the foam blocks after the games?

Most were returned to the manufacturer, and the foam was able to be reused. Some went to children's centres.

Not one went to landfill!

Each season, caravan parks and hotels renew their bedding. Where does the old stock go? They do the same with the guest kitchen supplies, dented, burnt pots, old crockery, broken microwaves and kettles.

None of these items should be going to landfill. None!

Housekeeping buys a lot of stuff and creates a lot of waste.

Waste management is not an area many EHKs have much experience in.

As the whole world kicks into high gear to get their hotels "corona-ready" in addition to their regular spring cleaning regimens, it is the perfect time to consider working on legacy!

Here are some of the solutions I've found in the past to save things going to landfill when I've been involved in seasonal reopenings:

Bedding:

Fabrics don't degrade quickly in the landfill. (See the link in comments!) You can avoid contributing to this problem by donating.

Many local charities will be extremely grateful for your mattresses and bedding which is no longer useable by your guest.

Home start charities and shelters are always in need of mattresses quilts and pillows.

If you think it's beyond use, then animal shelters and the ragman are great places to give these items to.

Room Amenities:

Half used and old or expired room amenities can be donated to local charities too.

They can be given to a woman arriving at a domestic violence shelter or those in need at the local homeless shelters.

Many initiatives will gladly take your broken microwaves and kettles.

(See organizational links in comments.)

Hold a Charity Sale:

At the end of the Olympics, we held a housekeeping Wild West auction of all the items the guests had left behind.

My amazing guest laundry girls had a great way of getting spare kit donated and we raised thousands of pounds for Rowing charities.

Boxes and boxes of protein shake and athlete supplements that were left behind were able to be dispersed amongst the Army and police who had been supporting us on the village.

There are very few things that genuinely NEED to go to landfill and it should be a very last resort.

Finally, REFUSE. You can refuse single-use plastic completely. There ARE options.

Give real thought to the legacy of everything you purchase going forward. What will happen to this item when it is no longer of use to you?

I'm up for a challenge today, so if you have something currently destined for landfill and you can't figure out what to do with it, let me know and I'll see if I can find a rehoming option for you.