Month of March has been declared as the month of "Our Nature – Managing waste and water". We asked ourselves how could we easily save water as well as energy and therefore money. A tourist staying in luxury accommodation can consume up to 880 litres of water. Swiss hostel guests use 113 litres per overnight. By installing low-flow shower heads in hostels you could reduce the average flow rate from 14.8 litres per minute down to 9 litres per minute, which is a 45% reduction.
As hostels, we have the power to directly make a positive contribution to protecting the environment in the way we handle and manage waste as well as water usage in our operations. Some easy changes in the hostel can make a massive difference to the waste and the water used, write on
hihostels.com.
Uncontrolled water pollution can be damaging to the economy as it can be expensive to treat and prevent contamination. On the positive note, by having in place a good management system the hostel may lower its costs if well managed. One of the basic key elements of a healthy community is having access to clean water and food, most people agree that every human being should have access to clean water. Scarcities often affect the people with limited means most. At the same time, communities in popular travel destinations often have to deal with the big amounts of waste produced by tourists. Too much of the waste we produce ends up in landfills and in the ocean, greatly affecting the marine life. A great quantity of this waste contains toxic compounds that do not break down quickly enough and accumulate in the Earth’s soil, oceans, lakes and rivers. They are not only damaging the environment, but also might end up in all organisms, including our food chain.
Did you know that consciously conserving water can also reduce your energy use and save you money? Heating all the water for laundry, showering etc. uses a lot of energy and cleaning the waste water is an energy-intensive process.
Our star projects this month come from Australia and from Spain.
Hostels As Corcerizas, Espinosa de los Monteros and Twntytu from Spain have done extremely well in this month. Hostelling International Spain (REAJ) is composed of more than 290 hostels and they want every hostel to be involved in sustainability.
Hostel Espinosa de los Monteros has an organic vegetable garden in order to show people how to grow their own healthy food.
Hostel As Corcerizas is an example of bioconstruction and bioclimatic architecture. They raise awareness with courses, formative walks, educational programmes. As Corcerizas is an energy island that only uses renewable energy. The food served also comes from fair trade sources and local organic agriculture.
Hostel Twentytu in Barcelona has implied water conservation measures – a system for recovering the water from showers and bathrooms for processing it subsequently in the toilet cisterns. All the taps are fitted with timer mechanisms. They also have a pneumatic waste collection.
All Australian hostels, included in national
HI association YHA Australia have stopped selling bottled water. Hostels installed water fountains for guest use and sold refillable water bottles. The main aim was to reduce the number of plastic bottles in landfill. They educated guests that tap water in Australia is safe to drink, free and that they will help the environment and save money by refilling a water bottle.
