ALPHARETTA, GA.—The Refinishing Touch, a leader in on-site environmentally safe and sustainable furniture refinishing, re-upholstering and armoire modification for private and public organizations, announced it completed more than 120 projects of refinishing and refurbishing with public and private organizations in 2010. Customers included hotels within the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), The Hilton Family of Brands, Marriott, and Radisson Hotels, as well as government agencies such as The United States Court of Appeals. The company also added Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)-complaint TV recycling to its range of services in 2010.
By the close of 2010 The Refinishing Touch had completed projects for 20,000 customers in all 50 states plus Canada, as well as United States military bases around the world. It has refurbished more than 2.5 million rooms of furniture, saving the equivalent of approximately 7.5 million trees from landfills.
On average, buying new furniture uses 1,731.92 tons of CO2. The Refinishing Touch only develops around 17.12 tons of CO2, thus saving an estimated 1,714.8 tons of CO2 from being released into the ecosystem.
The company’s commitment to sustainability is the core value in its own award campaign. The award program honors and recognizes companies that are demonstrating a commitment to sustainability by implementing environmentally friendly practices that reduce their carbon footprint. In all, The Refinishing Touch honored 35 organizations over the past year, including the Fairmont Battery Wharf Boston, Grand Casino Hinckley (Minn.), Marriott Anaheim (Calif.), Omni Mandalay Hotel at Las Colinas (Dallas), Sunset Station Casino Las Vegas, and the Willard InterContinental in Washington, D.C.
Focus on Television Disposal
With the growing consumer demand for sustainability, The Refinishing Touch continues to do its part by keeping the hotel industry up to speed on the latest environmental efficiency trends. Television disposal has become a major problem for the hotel industry as independent and chain hotels look to update bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) television sets and replace them with modern flat screen televisions. This was evident in a survey The Refinishing Touch conducted in October. The key finding highlighted the hotel industry’s failure to educate owners and managers on how to recycle television sets, or even that television sets were required to be recycled according to state and regional requirements.
The Refinishing Touch polled more than 100 hotel managers, operators and owners and found that despite guidance—and in some cases state laws—to reduce e-waste, television sets ended up in landfills. Two-thirds weren’t aware of what the requirements were for safe disposal. More than a quarter (26 percent) of respondents were completely unaware of any requirements around television disposal.
In May, The Refinishing Touch partnered with Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (also known by its trade name UNICOR), a government corporation which provides job skills training to inmates within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to recycle televisions as part of its e-waste program. The work with UNICOR to recycle electronics safely and responsibly as part of its TV recycling program was designed to complement The Refinishing Touch’s armoire conversion services and reduce e-waste.
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