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Water Conservation

Profits go down the drain, literally, when water is not conserved. Fortunately, there are many measures that can be taken to reduce consumption--both inside and outside of the hotel building. Green Lodging News highlights the latest news and best practices. Contact Glenn Hasek, editor, at (813) 510-3868, or by e-mail at: greenlodgingnews@gmail.com.

Water Conservation

Home Water Conservation
Profits go down the drain, literally, when water is not conserved. Fortunately, there are many measures that can be taken to reduce consumption--both inside and outside of the hotel building. Green Lodging News highlights the latest news and best practices. Contact Glenn Hasek, editor, at (813) 510-3868, or by e-mail at: greenlodgingnews@gmail.com.

Marriott to Invest $500,000 to Help Conserve Water in China

SHANGHAI—Marriott International will invest $500,000 in seed money over the next two years to support a vital water conservation program that helps protect the largest source of fresh water on the planet, located in the mountains of Southwest China. The program will focus its work in Sichuan Province, the area hit hard by the 2008 earthquake. Concurrently, Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels throughout China have committed to reducing their water and energy use by 25 percent by 2017. The program, called the “Nobility of Nature,” is designed to assist rural communities in Sichuan Province with sustainable businesses, such as mushroom farming...

Hilton Americas-Houston Saves with AquaRecycle Laundry System

HOUSTON—In an effort to even further reduce their carbon footprint, Hilton Americas-Houston, the city’s largest hotel and first Green Seal certified hotel in Texas, is now even greener with the installation of the AquaRecycle water recycling system in the hotel’s laundry. The laundry facility, covering 27,000 square feet and rivaling most commercial laundry plants in both size and capacity, is by far the largest hotel laundry in the city, washing and finishing more than 675,000 pounds of linens per month. The two Lavatec tunnel washers wash 100 pounds of linens every two and half minutes, with a maximum working capacity...

Moen Introduces Line of Sensor-Operated Flush Valves

NORTH OLMSTED, OHIO—Moen Incorporated’s Commercial Division introduces M•Power, a full line of sensor-operated flush valves featuring durability, water savings and sanitary protection for commercial restrooms. The M•Power line offers a number of options, including standard flow, high efficiency, dual flush and pint flush models. All M•Power flush valves require little or no maintenance, offering lower lifetime costs for a facility. As an added benefit, installing Moen’s M•Power flush valves contributes to a building’s eligibility to obtain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, earning the building up to two points in the Water Use Reduction category. “M•Power...

Monarch Secures Agreement with Comphy to Make Line of Bed Linens Available to Hotel Market

SOUTH EGREMONT, MASS.—Monarch Bath, Bed & Spa, a leading global provider of bathrobes and luxury hotel linens, announced that they have signed an exclusive agreement with The Comphy Company to provide their eco-friendly line of bed sheets to hotel markets worldwide. Comphy sheets are the latest addition to the MONARCH ECO product line, a complete line of hotel towels, robes and sheets designed to conserve water and reduce energy costs in the laundry operation, while maximizing comfort and durability. Comphy sheets are designed to provide superior luxury for guests, while protecting the bottom line for hoteliers. Made from 100 percent...

Great Wolf Resorts Breathes New Life into Green Practices

MADISON, WIS—On the one-year anniversary of the company’s Project Green Wolf, Great Wolf Resorts, Inc., North America’s largest family of indoor waterpark resorts, continues to celebrate its distinction as the first and only national hotel chain to have all properties achieve the Green Seal certification—Silver for the lodging portion of its 10 Great Wolf Lodge brand resorts and its Blue Harbor Resort & Conference Center in the United States. Additionally, Great Wolf Lodge—Niagara Falls received a four leaf Green Leaf Eco-Rating from the Audubon Green Leaf Eco-Rating Program in Canada. In 2007, Great Wolf Resorts started reducing energy and water...

Leak Beeper Introduces Wireless Device to Help Report Leaks

FRANKLIN, TENN.—Leak Beeper has introduced a wireless version of their patented, toilet-leak detection device. The new Leak Beeper incorporates a Synapse RF engine and network operating system to report leak indications, wirelessly and directly, to a maintenance engineer’s computer via a mesh network. The new wireless device provides a user-friendly way to proactively address toilet leaks and significantly reduce water consumption and costs. The Leak Beeper is a device that detects all of the leaks possible in a toilet’s water tank. Use of the Leak Beeper has reduced water consumption and costs by an average of 28 percent at major hotels...

Hilton Worldwide Unveils LightStay Sustainability Measurement System

MCLEAN, VA.—Following two years of testing, Hilton Worldwide has unveiled LightStay, a proprietary system developed to calculate and analyze environmental impact. In the first full year of findings, the 2009 LightStay results show that the 1,300 Hilton Worldwide properties using the system conserved enough energy to power 5,700 homes for a year, saved enough water to fill more than 650 Olympic-size pools and reduced carbon output equivalent to taking 34,865 cars off the road. Reductions in water and energy use also translated into dollars saved for hotel owners, with estimated savings of more than $29 million in utility costs...

Constant Airflow Regulators Provide Rapid ROI

BRADENTON, FLA.—At a time when energy costs have reached an all time high, savvy hotel and condo owners are finding highly effective ways to conserve energy and save money. By installing constant airflow regulators in bathroom and kitchen exhaust vents, owners and operators are able to accurately and automatically control the amount of heated or conditioned air that is constantly blown out of their buildings. While having the airflow automatically regulated improves the indoor air quality and enables the use of smaller high-efficiency fans, the greatest savings comes from the reduced load on a facility’s heating and cooling systems. Constant...

Alsons Shower Heads Meet New EPA WaterSense Criteria

HILLSDALE, MICH.—Alsons Corp., a leading manufacturer of distinctively-styled shower products, has partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its WaterSense program. Alsons announced that 40 of its shower head and hand shower SKUs have received the new WaterSense certification. The WaterSense label provides trade professionals and consumers with the assurance that select shower heads and hand showers are at least 20 percent more water-efficient than the current federal standard of 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm), flowing at a pressure of 80 pounds per square inch (psi). To receive the label, qualified shower heads and hand showers must be...

Water-based Products Reduce Environmental Impact of Cleaning

NATIONAL REPORT—Any discussion about green cleaning today should include the ways that water—plain old H2O—is being used to replace the toxic chemicals that cleaning and maintenance personnel have had to work with for decades. Cold water poured straight from the tap and used in that state is not going to clean much but if heated to a high temperature, ionized or infused with an extra oxygen atom, it can be just as effective or more effective at cleaning than the harshest chemicals. Many vendors now offer cleaning products that rely solely on water for cleaning. Some products are available...