Kicking the Bottled Water Habit at RockResorts

You know the way hotels stock their mini-bars with plastic water bottles? Well next time you take a swig, think about these alarming facts:

• Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour, and most of them are thrown away.
• Fewer than 20 percent of the plastic bottles used in the U.S. get recycled.
• Some 38 million plastic bottles go to the dump per year from bottled water (and that’s not including soda)
• Plastic bottles take 700 years to begin composting.
• Not to mention the fact that, according to online environmental website Green Upgrader, 24 million gallons of oil are needed to produce a billion plastic bottles.

For years, hotel companies have avoided the plastic bottle issue for fear of alienating their demanding guests. True, some hotels have started offering carafes of filtered water in restaurants—certainly progress. But most still offer plastic bottles—a hefty source of revenue—in the rooms. (For tips on how to get those bottles out of your office, check out this website.)

So how nice it is to report that RockResorts, a division of Vail Resorts Hospitality, has decided to do its part to put an end to all that waste by eliminating almost all plastic water bottles—as many as 640,000 bottles a year—at its eight resorts. Instead, each room will be supplied with two complimentary carafes of filtered water, which will be refilled twice a day. For $4, guests can buy a reusable stainless steel bottle, which they can refill at water stations all around the properties. The company's Pines Lodge has pioneered the program, which will be rolled out at its other hotels this spring, and then at the rest of Vail Resorts' properties.

The water initiative is part of a broader environmental program at RockResorts. The company “greened” all its hotel rooms this past year, with an opt-out linen reuse program, corn-plastic key cards, in-room recycling, energy-efficient lighting, and low-flow water fixtures. “The water bottles were inconsistent with telling people we are committed to the environment,” says Julie Klein, director of environmental affairs with Rock Resorts/Vail Resorts Hospitality. “So the question is, how can you balance the guest experience with trying to do a good job on expectations that you are environmentally sensitive?”

Many hotels run into resistance to getting rid of bottled water from their food and beverage departments, because of the loss of revenue. Pines Lodge, which is in Beaver Creek, Colorado, got around that problem by offering refillable, bottomless carafes of filtered still or carbonated water in its restaurants, at half the price of bottled water. (Free tap water is available too.) Conferences presented another challenge. “Our people got creative,” Klein says. The hotel now offers carafes of water flavored with grapefruit and cucumber. “The loss of revenue was an issue,” Klein adds, “but we just said, ‘we’ll figure it out.’”