Green From Within

Does anyone have any suggestions on approaching the Hampton Inn about making their breakfast more sustainable?

I’ve already sent the their IT department a digital comment concern, and I’m about to print the below letter and give it to their front desk as well as put this by the breakfast area.

Hello Hampton Inn,

I’ve observed that the morning breakfast generates a lot waste in form the Styrofoam plates, bowls, plastic cups, syrup packets, jam packets, ketchup packets, and more. There are several ways in which your business could save money, deliver a better service, and pollute less.

An easy solution to implement would be replacing the small single-use packets with larger multiple-use containers. The ketchup packets could easily be replaced with a ketchup bottle. The same is true for the syrup packets, salt and pepper packets, and the jam. There is currently a hot sauce bottle out as well as hot sauce packets, and the actual hot sauce from the bottle is better tasting and easier to put on your food. Replacing these type of packets with a multiple use container would make it so you have to take out the trash less often and it would only have to be put away at the end of the day, while the packets have to be put away anyways.

Another solution would be to replace the single use, non-microwable Styrofoam bowls, plates, and cups with actual bowls, plates, and cups. A non-breakable and microwavable material such as Duralex could be found. This would be a longer term investment that would quickly save Hampton money because these items would not have to be bought weekly – only once. They would have to be washed and stored at the end of the breakfast; however, this would only take an employee 5 minutes to load and unload a dishwasher. In addition the costumer would be happier because hard plates are easier to eat off, can be microwaved, and an environmental-conscious costumer does not have to worry about creating trash that takes several millennium to break down in a landfill.

The plastic utensils could also easily be replaced in a similar manner as replacing the Styrofoam dishes.

All these solutions would help Hampton become more eco-friendly, save money, and satisfy the costumer even more so. Some of the solutions could be put into breakfast tomorrow, while others would take a little more planning. I enjoy your breakfast and I hope that Hampton can take away something from my suggestions to make this breakfast even better. Thank you for reading this.

Sincerely

Patrick Bernard