The hospitality industry holds incredible power to drive environmental change. One impactful yet often overlooked area? The guest bathroom.
A Compromise Between Sanitation & Sustainability
It is, of course, important to maintain that hygiene should be the biggest priority when designing, cleaning and restocking your guest bathrooms. However, waste prevention should also be at the forefront of any accommodation provider’s plans.
Whilst it’s tough to be completely zero-waste in a hospitality environment, it’s definitely something to aim for. Rather than relying on single-use plastics, prioritising refillable products or those made from materials that can be reused, refilled, composted, or fully recycled goes a long way to reducing your environmental impact.
At Out of Eden, we provide hospitality products carefully selected with sustainability in mind, to help you create beautiful, functional bathrooms that your guests will love.
Where Do You Start?
If you’re looking to audit how your business operates and how you can be more sustainable, assess each of the following areas:
1. Do You Offer Products Like Amenity Kits?
Amenity kits have their benefits. Guests will always forget essentials like toothbrushes and razors. If you’re situated in an urban area where excessive light and noise might be an issue, earplugs and eye masks can ensure guests still sleep soundly. If you’re trying to ensure guests remove their makeup before they use your pristine white towels, wipes and vanity kits are useful.
For all the benefits these products offer, it’s important to weigh up how you distribute them to your guests to avoid wastage. Consider providing a menu of amenities available upon request or ask what your guests may require before their arrival. Not only will this provide exactly what’s necessary but also help you control costs.
All bathroom amenity kits from Out of Eden are packaged in recyclable materials, and the Makeup Remover Wipes and Shower Caps are biodegradable. Items like the sleep well kit, the dental kit and the sewing kit are reusable by the guest once they’ve left, so it’s also a great idea to remind guests of this if they request them.
2. Can You Switch to Refillable Toiletries?
Miniature toiletries are such a signifier of a hotel-quality stay, but they’re a single-use product that has environmental consequences. Out of Eden has been working hard in recent years to provide a comprehensive range of hotel toiletries that are entirely refillable, will reduce the use of single-use plastics in the hospitality industry and still offer guests a great scented and cleansing product.
Appealing to hotels, self-catering properties, Airbnbs and guest houses alike, the fragrant choice of toiletries are a hit with guests too. We often receive reviews and feedback from contented guests who experience one of our toiletry ranges on a recent stay and are eager to use it in their own homes.
Read more about why refilling can be so fulfilling here.
If you’d prefer to provide a more traditional bar of soap for your guests at the sink side, the new paper wrap on the Cole & Lewis soap bars is fully recyclable. Spa Works is in the process of changing over to paper wrap and Eden will soon join them.
3. Do You Use Plastic or Paper Sanitary Bags?
For optimum hygiene in your guest bathrooms, sanitary bags allow guests to contain and dispose of used sanitary products, razors and other items safely whilst protecting your plumbing. A necessary essential, even these products have an environmental impact, but thankfully there’s two sanitary bag options that offer sustainable features as well as convenience.
Made from biodegradable plastic, the Plastic Sanitary Bags are opaque and feature a permanent seal fold-over flap for maximum hygiene and discretion for your guests. Alternatively, the Paper Sanitary Bags are made from 60% recycled paper and packaged in cardboard boxes.
4. Can You Switch from Disposable to Reusables?
Reusable face cloths are a great swap for single-use cotton wool. Robust plastic tumblers are much better than plastic cups. And, when it comes to cleaning bathroom spaces, using washable knitted or microfibre cloths is another great reusable method that also keeps waste down.
Encouraging guests with simple signage in the bathroom on how to leave bathroom linens for laundering will allow them to get the most use out of their towels, robes and even slippers whilst reducing your energy and water consumption. If you’re unable to launder slippers as part of your business, the Plant Fibre Slippers offer a sustainable alternative that’s recyclable and compostable once used.
5. Is Your Toilet Paper as Sustainable as Can Be?
Provide your guests with toilet roll that’s 100% recycled and sustainably sourced. This 3-ply toilet roll has 30m of quality, quilted toilet tissue on each roll.
Made here in the UK, the extra-long rolls also contain extra-large sheets, meaning your guests will use less per visit. Packed in a cardboard box and sealed with paper tape, you can add the whole box to your recycling bin once emptied, keeping it in circulation and out of landfill.
6. Are you able to switch to organic or unbleached?
Unbleached towels offer the same benefit of the Classic 500gsm range without the use of bleach or coloured dyes. Still as soft and durable as the rest of the range but without producing the same environmental footprint during manufacture, the more natural colouring also looks great in guest spaces.
If you’re looking for something slightly more luxurious, the Luxury Organic Cotton range of towels is wonderfully absorbent and made from certified sustainable organic fibres, supporting farmers using natural systems to grow cotton.
