Home Cleaning & Maintenance A Laundry Game Changer—Recyclable, One-Time-Use Linens

A Laundry Game Changer—Recyclable, One-Time-Use Linens

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Glenn Hasek

It takes a lot for me to call a new product or process a game changer in our industry but the new recyclable—yes recyclable—sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers being produced by Pürlin, LLC are just that. Can you imagine reducing your laundry load and related costs by about 50 percent? Offering your guests linens that are high quality, hypoallergenic and that have never been used by any other guest—every single time a guest stays in that room?

My article posted this past week explains these new products. I had a chance to sit down and chat with the lodging industry veteran behind Pürlin this past week—Richard Ferrell, President of the Sarasota, Fla.-based company. Anyone with doubts about what Richard is doing should talk to him. He has the recycling of linens all figured out and is very passionate about the huge positive environmental impact it is going to have.

As mentioned, Pürlin products are not laundered. After being used by a guest they are picked up to be 100 percent recycled. Made of high-quality microfibers designed to simulate cotton—the same as those used in products such as baby diapers and athletic wear—the sheets and pillowcases are produced and recycled by companies based in Florida and North Carolina. Once heated to 500+ degrees Fahrenheit, the linens are liquefied and become the ingredients for making brand new sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers, thus resulting in zero waste.

A Paradigm Shift

“This will forever change hotel laundry,” Ferrell says. “You will never sleep on a sheet or pillow case that anyone has ever used. It is a paradigm shift that will change the way hoteliers and travelers think about bed linens.”

Each Pürlin sheet and pillowcase is hypoallergenic and saves water—selling points for any green hotel—and Pürlin will offer tent cards for use in guestrooms to explain the advantages of the linens. “We believe that Pürlin bed linens will be viewed as an amenity by the guest,” Ferrell says.

Several years ago, Ferrell attended a conference on water. “It really made me understand the global problems of water and heightened my concern for fresh water which is not a renewable resource,” he says. “I learned that it takes 2,800 gallons of water to make one queen-size cotton sheet.” He thought there must be a better way. Today, it takes less than one gallon of water to make a Pürlin sheet. Pürlin linens are delivered folded and ready to use, generating additional laundry savings.

Quality-wise, Ferrell says, “Our sheets are softer than most hotel sheets because they are spared from the grueling laundering process that hotel sheets must endure.”

Hoteliers Will Save in Many Ways

Assuming the sheets and pillowcases account for 50 percent of the laundry load, a typical 300-room hotel requires 1.5 million to 1.7 million gallons of water per year to wash those linens, resulting in the creation of 1.5 million to 1.7 million gallons of wastewater. By eliminating 50 percent of the laundry load, Pürlin linens will reduce the costs that have been associated with laundering the bed linens i.e., labor, detergent and chemicals, water and wastewater, electricity, etc., and best of all it eliminates the expensive cost of bed linen replacement.

In a recent analysis done for the Las Vegas hotel market, if all 169,100 hotel rooms were using Pürlin linens, approximately 850 million gallons of water per year would be saved, thus eliminating the creation of 850 million gallons of waste-water per year. Pürlin linens have the potential to significantly reduce the load on water management infrastructure.

Pürlin sheets and pillow cases are currently being tested in Florida and Pürlin is already fielding queries from hospitality and health care organizations in anticipation of their rapidly approaching midyear 2018 fulfillment schedule. The intention is to begin rolling out the program in central Florida. The Orlando market alone has approximately 115,000 hotel rooms, 20,000 time shares and 26,000 vacation home rentals, which when combined represent an estimated 385,250 beds. Thus, the potential demand from this market alone could justify the building of a Pürlin Closed-Loop Center in Orlando where the linens will be manufactured, distributed and recycled. Eventually, there will be regional Pürlin Closed-Loop Centers located throughout the United States.

Ferrell says the cost of using Pürlin will be at or below what a hotel typically spends for purchasing and maintaining bed linens. Because Pürlin linens are recycled after each use, the hotel owner will never have to replace damaged or worn linens again.

Green Lodging News Adds New Book to Product & Service Directory

Green Lodging News welcomes “One Green Deed Spawns Another,” a new book authored by green manufacturing consultant David Mahood, to the Green Product & Service Directory. It entails his quest for sustainability and conversations with the sources of his inspiration. If you had one green deed you’d like to see heeded, adopted, and passed on, what would it be and why? The book is a compilation of the answers to that question in the context of a 20-year journey. From green architecture pioneers to green product pioneers, from natural fiber farmers to worm farmers, from Native Americans to marine biologists, the range of ideas is boundless. Call (617) 694-4157 or e-mail david@davidmahood.com.

Virginia Green Travel Conference Set for March 1 to 2

I will be one of the keynote speakers at the 5th Annual Virginia Green Travel Conference & Travel Star Awards. The event will take place March 1 to 2 at the Virginia Beach Convention Center and is being put together by the Virginia Green Travel Alliance. The event will feature two days packed with keynote speaker presentations, educational sessions, Green Tourism Business Expo, Travel Star Awards and much more. My presentation is entitled, “Trends in Hotel Sustainability: The Convergence of Awareness, Inspiration & Innovation.” I hope to see you there.

Suppliers interested in exhibiting during the Green Tourism Business Expo should contact Tom Griffin, Executive Director of the Virginia Green Travel Alliance at (804) 986-9119, or by e-mail at tom@greenerresults.com. Hoteliers can register for the conference here.

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Who is Your Sustainability Champion?

Green Lodging News is always looking to profile sustainability champions in our Personnel Profile section. If you would like to nominate someone for this section of Green Lodging News, contact me at (813) 510-3868, or by e-mail at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.

Looking for Guest Columnists

Every two weeks Green Lodging News posts a new guest column on its website. (Click here for examples.) The guest column also appears in the weekly e-newsletter. Green Lodging News is currently in need of industry experts to contribute occasional guest columns. Experts may include consultants, architects, designers, suppliers and those who own or operate green lodging establishments. Columns may be articles that take a stance on a particular subject or be strictly educational in nature. Columnists benefit by having their photo included along with a one paragraph description of their company. Interested in writing a column? Contact Glenn Hasek, publisher and editor, at (813) 510-3868, or by e-mail at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.

Planning Advertising for 2018?

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As always, I can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.

2 COMMENTS

  1. My immediate reaction to this is that it is a horrible idea and horrible concept. Liquefying sheets at temperatures of 500F as opposed to washing them… you have to be kidding! Water and cotton are both natural renewable resources. If mainstream hospitality ‘must’ cater to these extreme demands of society, then there is a larger problem with the society itself that needs to be addressed beyond ‘technological’ advances that make ‘baby-steps’ towards a cleaner environment.

  2. How could you possibly think that it is a “horrible idea” to embrace a concept that has the potential of saving billions of gallons of water?
    Your assertion that water is a renewable natural resources is false.
    Considering the global demand for our rapidly dwindling water resources, water conservation has to be a top priority for the Hospitality Industry. While cotton may be renewable, it one of the most water intensive crops and most toxic, due to the heavy use of pesticides used to cultivate it.
    Any product that is 100% recycled, zero waste is a huge leap towards protecting the water resources for the future.

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