Royal Lancaster London, the iconic Hyde Park hotel, is making plastic consumption a top priority to combat in 2018.
The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team at the recently renovated hotel collected 1250 plastic bottles from various departments over the course of two months.
The bottles were used to build ‘The Elephant in the Room’ which stands outside the hotel’s staff restaurant, bringing individual plastic waste to the forefront of all the colleagues’ attention. The CSR team volunteered 35 hours to build the elephant figure, which was chosen because plastic consumption is a colossal and obvious problem, yet it is still not being challenged enough for real progress to happen.
Shockingly, the 1250 bottles equated to 30KG of single-use plastic, which is the exact amount of plastic entering the world’s oceans every eight seconds.
As one of the capital’s largest hotels, Royal Lancaster London has over 300 full-time employees. If each member of staff used only one small plastic bottle each day, the hotel would produce 7.2KG of waste plastic per day. The CSR team have already started to implement an awareness campaign, in order to cut out plastic waste entirely from the hotel.
Hospitality trade publication ‘The Caterer’ is supporting Royal Lancaster London’s campaign by providing reusable water bottles to the key impact departments creating the most plastic waste. Additional water stations are being set up around the hotel, and colleagues are being encouraged to keep their reusable bottle with them as more drinking water stations are developed around the city.
The topic of single-use plastic consumption is undoubtedly getting louder within the media and UK businesses following the esteemed BBC documentary ‘Blue Planet II’ by David Attenborough, which focused on plastic’s destructive effects on oceans.
The 411-room hotel also supported the Evening Standard’s ‘Last Straw’ campaign in January 2018 to reduce the number of plastic straws used by restaurants and hotels in the capital. All straws and cups used at Royal Lancaster London are made of biodegradable plastic and are only offered if requested by a guest.
Royal Lancaster London, Lancaster Terrace, London W2 2TY
Reservations on 020 7551 6000 or visit www.royallancaster.com