Dumping toxic waste. That is what most of our industry has been doing for years with partially used cans of chafing dish fuel gel. I wrote about the problem two and one-half years ago. According to industry experts, that is still happening. Most chafing dish fuel gels found today are made from corn-based ethanol, methanol and other additives to help the product burn hotter. Methanol is added to make it too toxic for consumption. Fuel gel using methanol and other additives is considered hazardous waste and should be treated as such. Methanol gel is poisonous and contains dioxin and...

The floor kept moving throughout the journey yet I never required Dramamine. That was an accomplishment for me. I took my first cruise a couple of weeks ago on Carnival Paradise. It was for five nights and included departure from Tampa, Fla. and visits to Cozumel and Costa Maya, Mexico. I really enjoyed the trip. No offense to my five-year-old, but it was a treat to drop him off at Camp Carnival and go read a book or see a show with my wife. We all got to do what we really wanted to do. I have often wondered about...

I have slept under the stars before…but under water? As written in my article posted this past week, it may soon be possible to sleep in an underwater hotel. Tony Webb, Founder and Managing Director of Planet Ocean Underwater Hotels, LLC, has invested a lot of time developing his Planet Ocean Underwater Hotels. His goal is to have as many as 15 of the 12-room luxury boutique properties open in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. Location number one would be in the waters off Cuba. One purpose of the business venture is...

We are in the home stretch for the second annual Green Lodging Trends Report survey. It will close on June 15. If you have not yet participated in the survey, please be sure to do so. Also be sure to spread the word to your colleagues. Hundreds of hoteliers already have participated. Click here to access the survey! There are numerous benefits to participating: Get a free compare report! Find out where your property is aligned with the best practices and where it is behind with peers locally and globally. Discover new innovative practices that hotels are implementing. Use information...

I really don’t think I will ever look at a bar of soap the same again, or a plastic amenity bottle. Much of that has to do with Clean the World and all of the incredible work it has done the last eight years repurposing those items—ultimately saving lives. I spoke with Shawn Seipler, Founder and CEO of the Orlando, Fla.-based nonprofit this past week and he gave me an update on the progress of Clean the World and all of the innovative work it is doing. (See my article.) Many of you send your partially used soap and amenities...

Extending the life of your furniture assets can have a significant positive impact on your bottom line and the environment as well. Just ask Bob Stephens, owner of Northern Lights Restoration, Spencer, N.Y., and Mario Insenga, owner of The Refinishing Touch, Alpharetta, Ga. Together, the two have been restoring furniture and other woodwork for a total of 65 years (40 for Mario, 25 for Bob). It is hard to imagine the volume of furniture they have kept out of landfills. I spoke with Bob and Mario for an article I posted on Green Lodging News this past week. Bob’s company...

I attended Hospitality Design Expo (HD Expo) earlier this month in Las Vegas. I attend the show every year and this year it seemed to be so much larger. You just about needed to hail a cab to get from one end of the show floor to the other. There were more than 800 exhibitors, more than 10,000 attendees, and 275,000 square feet of show floor space. As usual, I walked the show floor looking for new green products and technologies. I described some of them in the article I posted this past week on Green Lodging News. With any...

I have spoken to a lot of sustainability leaders over the years about their properties’ waste management successes. This week I will be featuring St. Julien Hotel & Spa on the Green Lodging News website—a 201-room, luxury property with one of the most impressive waste management success stories to tell.  Be sure to watch for the article. I spoke with James P. Farrell, the hotel’s Sustainability Coordinator, and he told me that in 2007 the Boulder, Colo. property disposed of almost 700,000 pounds of materials. Over the last decade that number has been axed to 400,000 pounds annually thanks to...

I am excited to report that Green Lodging News and Greenview have just launched the second annual Green Lodging Trends Report Survey. You can participate in the survey by clicking here. The Survey will remain open through June 15. There is no cost to participate and there are many benefits, including a free compare report that will allow you to see where your property is aligned with best practices, and where it is behind among peers locally and worldwide. You can also discover new innovative practices worth implementing, and use information to improve and ultimately outperform your competitors. Your survey input...

Green Lodging News’ list of Solar Powered hotels in its Renewable Energy All Stars section grew by yet another this past week with the announcement of the completion of a 269 kW photovoltaic system at the Ramada Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, Calif. The installation is projected to produce 426,000 kWh of power annually. The electricity generated by the system is expected to power at least 70 percent of the hotel’s 175 guestrooms, public lighting and three EV charging stations. The clean energy produced by the system is expected to equal a reduction of 8,727 tons of CO2 over 25 years or...