VANCOUVER, B.C.—JRS Amenities, a provider of guestroom amenities and accessories for the hospitality industry, is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its award-winning recycling Waste-Not-Basket.
The Waste-Not-Basket is an aesthetically-pleasing wastebasket with two, three or four compartments that can each be labeled based on a property’s recycling infrastructure (i.e. cans, paper, glass, waste, etc.). Designed to promote in-room recycling by guests, the Waste-Not-Basket has proved that having it in a hotel room leads to an increase in recycling collected.
Since 1997, when the Waste-Not-Basket was introduced, more than 120 hotels have placed them in guestrooms, meeting rooms and lobby areas. This unique product is now available for consumer use as well. Based on the number of Waste-Not-Baskets in North American hotel rooms today, with each generating a fairly consistent type of waste—one newspaper, two cans and two bottles daily—JRS Amenities assists its customers in diverting more than 20,000 tons of waste from landfills each year, saving about 330 billion BTUs of energy, which is enough to power nearly 3,200 homes for one year.
“When I designed the Waste-Not-Basket 10 years ago, my goal was to provide an aesthetically-pleasing and recognizable in-room recycling system that was easily usable by hotel guests,” says Susan Howard Memory, President and founder of JRS Amenities. “Since the product’s inception, our customers have successfully diverted waste from traditional disposal, generated cost savings, seen improved employee motivation, and gained excellent marketing opportunities from their environmental practices.”
A New York Success Story
One example of successful hotel recycling can be seen at The Benjamin hotel, which adopted the Waste-Not-Basket in the late 1990s. The Benjamin Hotel is a 209-room luxury hotel in New York City that has committed to protecting the environment by implementing numerous environmental programs throughout its operations. This has resulted in The Benjamin being one of only four Five-Globe ECOTEL-certified properties in the world.
“The Benjamin is committed to the environment at a cultural level; it is engrained in how we act and how we live everyday,” says Andrew Labetti, general manager of The Benjamin Hotel. “We strive to make it easy for the guests to make a difference for the environment. This solution was made easy by incorporating the Waste-Not-Basket in our guestrooms, which gives our guests a simple way to contribute.”
Another JRS Amenities customer, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, was the first to launch a chain-wide environmental program. While it started small with paper and glass recycling, today Fairmont has grown to be a global leader in conservation and sustainable tourism through its Green Partnership Guide, which offers a blueprint list of environmental initiatives for each of its hotels and resorts. By incorporating the JRS-designed recycling basket in its guestrooms, travelers are encouraged to contribute to Fairmont’s sustainability goals through an in-room waste management program.
“Guests of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts expect when they enter their room to see the Waste-Not-Basket,” says David Roberts, Regional Vice-President, Rocky Mountain Region and general manager of The Fairmont Banff Springs. “We applaud Susan Memory and her team at JRS Amenities on the anniversary of this product. The placement of the basket encourages guests to reduce, reuse and recycle and as a result will lessen their footprint in the destination they visit.”
In conjunction with the Waste-Not-Basket’s tenth anniversary, JRS Amenities continues to demonstrate its environmental leadership by introducing a new environmentally-responsible trash bag designed specifically for the Waste-Not-Basket. Made from Plastarch (or PSM), a biodegradable resin made from cornstarch, this custom-fit bag helps everyone to do the right thing while making recycling a breeze for housekeeping staff.
PSM personal care amenities such as toothbrushes, combs, sewing kits, razors, shoe polisher and shower caps are also available from JRS Amenities. With the company’s “green-base” amenities and commitment to only supply recyclable amenity bottles, JRS Amenities continues to distinguish itself as an environmental leader within the hospitality industry.
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