Group finds cutting waste yields savings

Program targets resorts' use

Evadne Giannini’s company, Hospitality Green, helps businesses save money by being environmentally friendly, such as going through the recyclables at the Villa Roma Resort to help the hotel reduce its waste.DOMINICK FIORILLE/ Times Herald-Record

By Leonard Sparks

Times Herald-Record

Published: 2:00 AM - 08/31/13

MOUNTAINDALE — Villa Roma maintenance Manager Bill Andrews parked a passenger van in the resort's Dumpster yard and Evadne Giannini got out and began inspecting clear bags filled with money.

Inside were bottles and cans collected as part of a recycling program expected to save Villa Roma more than $100,000 this year. Giannini was checking the purity of the program, which was launched with the aid of Mountaindale-based business Hospitality Green. She peered into bags to ensure they were free of other waste.

"This is money for them," said Giannini, the company's principal.

Reducing waste to yield savings for hotel and other clients, and showing how "green" products can protect employees and guests, is a growth industry for Hospitality Green as businesses pursue savings and travelers prioritize hotels using sustainable practices.

Giannini and her contract employees can be found looking through Dumpsters and trash bags, following trash haulers around and checking supply closets to see where clients can reduce waste and replace hazardous chemicals.

"We have to get under the hood," Giannini said.

Zero waste is the goal for Hospitality Green, whose local clients includes SUNY Sullivan and The Sullivan hotel.

To achieve that, the company recruits all levels of a business' operations, from maintenance and cleaning staff to supply purchasers and food service workers.

The benefit of junking incandescent bulbs in favor of longer-lasting CFLs and LEDs, thereby saving on replacement costs, is part of the mix.

So are composting and recycling, which can save on Dumpster and landfill costs, and green cleaning products, which can reduce worker health costs and appeal to guests sensitive to the odor of some chemicals.

Convincing all employees to buy in to sustainable practices is the key, Giannini said.

"Our job is to figure out a way to bring this rather complicated information to people where they can understand they can make a difference," she said.

One client, Dover Downs, saved about $250,000 on its landfill bill by diverting recyclables from its trash stream, Giannini said. Villa Roma expects to save significant amounts on the single-stream recycling program launched in June.

"A lot of people have the belief that going green is a lot of money," said Bill Andrews, the resort's maintenance manager. "But the overall savings, there's no comparison."

Villa Roma eliminated three Dumpsters and cut back on the frequency of pickups, which cost $150 per pickup plus $70 for each ton of trash.

Andrews predicts the savings may double next year.

"Not only is it great for the hotel, it's great for the environment," he said.

lsparks@th-record.com 

The Weight of Water Part 2: Desert Droughts & Deluges

Storm Descending

Turn on almost any faucet in Santa Fe and clear, clean free-flowing water will come out. This is a miracle. Where I live, just 20 miles south, water doesn’t come as easily. My house has no water source – no water lines, no well – other than rainwater from the sky.  It rains less than a foot a year in this part of New Mexico, most of it in the summer months, and on more than one occasion, I have turned on the tap and had nothing come out.

It’s true what they say: there is no shortage of water in the desert, but exactly the right amount. Living off rainwater in the desert takes vision: you have to be able to see past dryness to the deluge so when rain does come, often in the form of a sudden, biblical downpour, you are ready to collect as much rainwater as possible.

Floods are as much a part of this place as drought. As dry as the desert appears much of the year, its shape is dominated by the running of water. Since it’s dry most of the time, the soil doesn't seem to know what to do with water when it does come and storm scars cut deep and last for years.

Horses crossing an arroyo

Arroyos are the great gutters of this desert: rivulets lead to small gullies and then larger ones, which empty into the deep arroyos that, a few times a year, I’m told, flow in white caps down to the Galisteo River. Knowing the arroyos as deep, dry scars, I found it hard to fathom them full of water, until I witnessed an August flash flood.

One minute it was sunny, then it was a bit overcast, then rain was coming down in buckets. Rain is rare enough here to warrant stopping what you're doing to go watch it from the porch. But this time my porch was already soaked. This storm was something different. The rain was falling sideways and upside down, the wind-driven drops pelting so hard that when they hit they bounced back up towards the sky.

Squinting through the downpour, I saw a rushing, chocolate brown river raging across my driveway. This was the storm I had been waiting to see! I pulled on my water shoes and grabbed my camera and ran out into the rain. The driveway river was running fast and high enough that I would not attempt to drive across it. I turned upstream and plunged into the knee-deep fast running water without bothering to roll up my pant legs. Pants be damned; I had a waterfall to see!

I sloshed upstream, towards the spot I'd always planned on heading in the event of a storm like this: a spillway of red sandstone evidently sculpted by past floods less than a quarter mile from my house. The violent current was knee deep and frothy brown, like a melted chocolate shake – the good kind, thick with cream – and nearly as cold. 

Following the roaring, sloshing river between the high arroyo banks, water borne debris – sticks and rocks and I hoped not rattlesnakes– pelted my submerged feet and wrapped around my legs and I was glad for the long pants, though they were soaked and filthy. I rounded a few bends in the river and arrived to an incredible scene: raging water had transformed the usually dusty dry place and save for the familiar rocks crowning the falls, I hardly recognized it.

Rain was pouring, thunder was rumbling, lightning was clapping and the waterfall was glorious, falling like rushing chocolate and churning madly at my feet. A flood in the desert! I had to see it to believe it.

 In a one-inch rainstorm, a thousand square foot roof will catch 650 gallons of water. In that one spectacular summer storm – which loosed more rain than in the previous nine months combined – my roof collected enough water to last me through most of the winter. And that’s not even as wet as it gets out here. Heading west from my house across BLM land, I can hike to the Galisteo Dam, a massive flood control dam built in 1965 to hold back 100-year floods. As far as I know, they've never come, but there’s still time.

Standing at the top, on the edge of the dam, among bright red and pure white sandstone slabs – the red dotted with chartreuse lichen, the white decorated with delicate fossils of frozen grass – I finally saw the need for the dam: the land below is rippled by giant flood waves.

Only from this vantage, high above the desert, could I begin to grasp the vast expanse of time preserved here. Millions of years ago, this landscape was underwater, drowned beneath an inland shallow sea. Much later the Cerrillos Hills and Ortiz Mountains littered the ground with glittering shards of volcanic rock.

Cerrillos Hills Summit

 This desert is made up of millions of years of these layers, layers of Earth, layers of life. Studying these layers from the top of the dam, our own layer of Earth, the uppermost crust we live upon, love upon, ransack and pollute upon, becomes ever so humbly thin.

The rains will always come again, but there’s no telling when. In our lifetimes the deserts are desertifying: trending drier and drier, with longer and longer waits between deluges. How dry is too dry? How long is too long? Better to learn the weight of water, before those miraculously free flowing taps run dry.

About The Author

Mary Caperton Morton is a freelance writer, photographer and professional housesitter who makes her home on the back roads of rural North America, living and working out of a solar-powered Teardrop camper. When she’s not at the wheel or the keyboard, she can be found outside, hiking, climbing mountains and taking photographs. Follow her travels at www.theblondecoyote.com 

The Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative receives the Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Green Economic Development

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative receives the Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Green Economic Development 

Santa Fe, New Mexico - April 27, 2013 - Felicity Broennan of the Santa Fe Watershed Association, spear heading the public-private sector collaboration called the Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative, received today the 2013 Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Green Economic Development at the Eldorado Hotel, located at 309 W. San Francisco Street in Santa Fe. The 2013 Sustainable Santa Fe Awards are sponsored by the City’s Sustainable Santa Fe Commission, Earth Care NM, Green Fire Times, and the Green Chamber of Commerce. 

Santa Fe hosts more than one million tourists every year. While tourism is an important part of the Santa Fe economy, tourism puts considerable pressure on the environmental resources of the city. In 2012, The Santa Fe Watershed Association (SFWA) was awarded an 18 month grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to partner with the City, lodging associations and providers to develop Santa Fe’s Green Lodging Initiative. The initiative was undertaken to generate economic development and to work with lodging providers to help conserve water and reduce chemical pollutants entering the Santa Fe watershed. 

SFWA contracted HospitalityGreen LLC, founder of the nationally-recognized Green Concierge Certification® program, to provide Santa Fe lodging providers training, coaching, and individualized technical assistance that leads to third-party green certification. 

HospitalityGreen LLC’s work in the Catskills resulted in measured environmental and financial outcomes. Participating businesses diverted at least 2,640 tons of waste and increased occupancy in 2011 by 20 – 25%. Certifying over 20 properties helped legitimately brand the Catskills as a green destination resulting in increased tourism and local jobs.  Similar results are expected from the Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative.

The Santa Fe Green Lodging  Initiative was launched in November 2012 and fourteen Santa Fe properties representing  B&Bs, hotels, inns, motels, and resorts qualified for participation including:  La Fonda on the Plaza, La Posada de Santa Fe Resort and Spa, Old Santa Fe Inn, Inn on the Alameda, Silver Saddle Motel, Eldorado Hotel and Spa, Santa Fe Sage Inn, Hotel Santa Fe, Inn of the Governors, Ten Thousand Waves, Inn at Santa Fe, Inn of the Five Graces, Fort Marcy Suites, and Casa Cuma Bed and Breakfast.  

By adopting streamlined sustainable practices, these lodging providers will save money, upgrade their facility to meet growing market expectations, and increase their competitive advantage in an expanding green hospitality marketplace. 
 

Evadne Giannini, Founder and CEO of HospitalityGreen LLC, said “We are honored to be working with this exciting public-private partnership and to be awarded the 2013 Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Green Economic Development.

  

The Santa Fe Watershed Association (SFWA) www.santafewatershed.org  builds vibrant, resilient ecosystems within the Santa Fe River Watershed using a holistic approach of restoration, education, stewardship, and advocacy.  

Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative’s growing directory of local partners includes: Santa Fe Watershed Association, Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau, City of Santa Fe Environmental Services Division, New Mexico Lodging Association, Santa Fe Lodgers Association, Santa Fe Community College, New Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce, Santa Fe Chapter, Inn of the Governors, La Posada de Santa Fe Resort and Spa, and the Inn and Spa at Loretto. 

HospitalityGreen LLC, www.hospitalitygreen.com is a New York based consulting firm specializing in environmental and operations consulting services. HospitalityGreen partners with service-based and product-based clients throughout the hospitality, manufacturing and institutional healthcare industries, to implement sustainable business practices.   We provide services for our client not to them. Our goal is to create for our client’s environmental capital one facility at a time.

For more information on HospitalityGreen and the Green Concierge Certification™, visit www.hospitalitygreen.com or call (845) 436-6173.

CONTACT

Adrianne Picciano, Project Coordinator

HospitalityGreen

Tel: (845) 436-6173

Email:  a.picciano@hospitalitygreen.com

Website: www.hospitalitygreen.com

PEST MANAGEMENT RESOURCES

EPA and NPMA Partner to Promote Bed Bug Awareness

The EPA is partnering with the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) to help raise public awareness about bed bugs and what people can do to help curb infestations. The EPA has resources for communities to learn how to prevent, detect and control bed bug infestations.  Obtaining accurate information is the first step in both prevention and control. While there are no quick fixes scientists are working on a non-chemical remedy they believe will be fail proof once developed. This development was featured in a New York Times article in April 2013. Currently, there are effective strategies to control bed bugs using both non-chemical and chemical methods.

Simple precautions can help prevent bed bug infestation in your home:

• Check secondhand furniture, beds and couches for any signs of bed bug infestation before bringing them home.
• Reduce clutter in your home to reduce hiding places for bed bugs.
• When traveling, use hotel room luggage racks to hold your luggage when packing or unpacking rather than setting your luggage on the bed or floor.

The EPA has the following bed bug resources:

• Bed Bug Information website:
  http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/bedbugs/
• Bed Bug Clearinghouse:
  http://www.epa.gov/bedbugs/bedbug-clearinghouse.html
• Ten Tips to Prevent Bed Bugs:
  http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/bed-bugs-faq-fs.html
• Travelers: Beware of Bed Bugs!” – handy reminder cards:
  http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/Publications/bedbug-traveler.pdf

Bed Bugs in Schools Webinar

On Thursday, April 25 from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm ET, the EPA and the NPMA will co-host the webinar Understanding Bed Bugs in Schools. Presentations will describe proactive steps, such as how to prevent bed bugs, and how to manage bed bug hot spots in schools. To register for the webinar, please visit https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/775395562

The National Pest Management Association is a gold-level member of the EPA’s Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program (PESP) and has declared April 22-26 Bed Bug Awareness Week.  To learn more about PESP, go to http://www.epa.gov/pesp/.

For information from the NPMA on bed bugs, visit http://www.pestworld.org/all-things-bed-bugs/.

The Weight of Water by: Mary Caperton Morton

  

Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon. If that doesn’t sound heavy, you’ve never been hiking in the desert with a day’s worth of drink on your back. I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, but I didn’t learn the weight of water until I moved to New Mexico, where water is rare and precious and worth its considerable weight in blue gold.

In New Mexico, I lived off the map, caretaking a place in the wide open deserts just south of Santa Fe. The place was more than a house. It was an Earthship: an off-grid passive solar adobe, adrift on acres of land. The house wasn’t connected to the outside world by wires or pipes, only a long rough and rutted dirt road. My power and my water both came from the sky and if I wanted to run out for milk, it was a two-hour round trip into town.

The Earthship was an isolated place, but it afforded rare freedoms. Out there, I could hike in any direction to the horizon, down endless trails across open country. Between the paths, the place was wild, undulating madly in plunging arroyos and tilted sandstone. On foot, my favorite way to travel, it was a tremendous, uncharted place.

As well as I came to know the landscape around me – its contours and secrets – so I came to know myself: I knew exactly how much electricity I burned in a day, how much water I let drain in a shower. I knew how quickly I went through a bag of beans, how long I could go before I pined for town, for Santa Fe’s bright colors, its rush of voices, the thrill of a menu, a taste of the outside world. Often, weeks would pass without wanting to be anywhere but out there in all that free open space.

Living in such a wild, remote place has its challenges, the greatest of which was the lack of free-flowing water. The Earthship had no water source – no water lines, no well – other than the sky. The building’s metal roof could collect hundreds of gallons of water during a good rain, the water gushing noisily through the gutters into two 1500-gallon water cisterns buried beneath the house.

Of course it doesn’t rain much in New Mexico, on average less than twelve inches per year – this year, so far, has loosed less than six – mostly in late summer. During dry spells I called Joe, a Navajo with a big red truck that dragged an old wheeled water tank. Joe charged $40, cash, for 400 gallons of water, delivered. I mostly used the cistern water for the Earthship’s sinks and shower, the grey water that flowed down the drains went out to water the plants and to fill the toilet and bought drinking water in 5-gallon reusable jugs. On average, I used around 50 gallons of water a week. The average American household uses more than 350 gallons of water a day.

On three occasions, twice my first winter and once last year, I turned on the tap and nothing came out. That was when I learned the true weight of water. When nothing comes out of the tap but a desperate gurgling noise, the weight of water is soul crushing. Suddenly, four walls, a roof, and plenty of food, all mean nothing. Without water, you have no home. In the desert, without water, you are nothing.

Visitors to Santa Fe seldom know the weight of water, but they’ll soon memorize those ubiquitous signs above every sink in the city: Water is a finite resource, please conserve.

What effect the signs have on people, as they stand at the sink, washing their hands, brushing their teeth, I don’t know. What effect they have once people go home, to places richer in water than New Mexico, is even less certain. I know when I stand at a sink where the water flows free, I am thankful for every drop. Perhaps every now and then, taps in Santa Fe should run dry with an empty, ominous gurgle. Then perhaps more people would feel, know and remember the true weight of water.

I have been away from the Earthship’s extreme asceticism for nearly nine months now, enjoying a winter back east, closer to my roots. But even here, the sound of rain on the roof in the middle of the night is enough to jolt me out of a deep sleep, anxious to check the gutters on the (now nonexistent) rainwater collection system. Every time I turn on the tap and water flows freely, I think of the desert and the awful, desperation of running out. I hope I will feel the weight of water for the rest of my life.

     

About The Author

Mary Caperton Morton is a freelance writer, photographer and professional housesitter who makes her home on the back roads of rural North America, living and working out of a solar-powered Teardrop camper. When she’s not at the wheel or the keyboard, she can be found outside, hiking, climbing mountains and taking photographs. Follow her travels at www.theblondecoyote.com. 

   

HG's Green Concierge Certification Program is launched in Santa Fe, New Mexico

SANTA FE, N.M.—The Santa Fe Watershed Association (SFWA) has launched a public-private sector collaboration called the Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative. The initiative is being funded by a $49,700 grant awarded to the Watershed Association by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. SFWA supports Santa Fe’s hospitality industry to save money, conserve water, and decrease chemical pollution going into their watershed. “This is a certification program that helps hotels set achievable goals commensurate with their capabilities,” Watershed Association executive director, Felicity Broennan said. “More than one million tourists visit Santa Fe each year. While they are welcomed and are an important part of our economy, they also put considerable pressure on our environmental resources.”

Over the next 12 months, HospitalityGreen LLC, a New York-based firm specializing in environmental and operations consulting services and founder of the nationally recognized Green Concierge Certification program, will provide technical assistance, green team training and customized coaching free of charge to 15 lodging providers in Santa Fe. HospitalityGreen (HG) will conduct third party assessments of each property in November 2013. The assessment will determine if the individual property has met the rigors of the Green Concierge Certification. The certification requires that a property meet multiple standards and track resource usage with HospitalityGreen’s proprietary resource tracking tools for a minimum of six months.

HG’s work in the Catskills resulted in measured environmental and financial outcomes. Participating businesses diverted at least 2,640 tons of waste to reuse or recycling, saved approximately $324,900, and increased occupancy by 20 to 25 percent. Certifying more than 20 properties helped brand the Catskills as a green destination resulting in increased tourism and local jobs.

“We are honored to have been chosen to bring our program to Santa Fe,” said Evadne Giannini, founder and CEO of HospitalityGreen LLC. “We look forward to sharing ideas, assisting the properties to meet the certification standards and working with the Santa Fe partners to help brand Santa Fe as an eco-tourist destination.”

The Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative’s growing directory of local partners includes: Santa Fe Watershed Assn.; Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau; City of Santa Fe Environmental Services Division; New Mexico Lodging Assn.; Santa Fe Lodgers Assn.; Santa Fe Community College; New Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce, Santa Fe Chapter; Inn of the Governors; La Posada de Santa Fe Resort and Spa; and the Inn and Spa at Loretto. 

Go to HospitalityGreen.

Picture courtesy of Inn and Spa at Loretto.

Santa Fe Green Lodging Initiative

Watershed Project: Get Hotels Greener

By Kiera Hay / Journal North Reporter on Fri, Nov 23, 2012

The Santa Fe Watershed Association plans to roll out a pilot project next month aimed at helping local hotels take their eco-friendliness to the next level. 

Dubbed the Green Lodging Initiative, the effort will include helping hotels better conserve water and reduce the amount of chemicals and other pollutants they release into the environment. “We’re really interested in helping lodging facilities streamline their resources,” Watershed Association executive director Felicity Broennan said.

The initiative is being funded by a $49,700 grant awarded to the Watershed Association by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The Watershed Association is contracting with HospitalityGreen, a New York company, to analyze the operations of participating hotels and provide them with recommendations on becoming greener. 

That could involve looking at what kind of soap or light bulbs the hotels use, or how they distribute toiletries. 

It’s “all of these things we don’t think about when we’re in a hotel room, yet if all that stuff is getting washed down the drain, it has an impact on the river,” watershed and other natural resources, Broennan said. 

A Watershed Association news release noted that “more than one million tourists visit Santa Fe each year. 

“While they are welcomed and are an important part of our economy, they also put considerable pressure on our environmental resources.” 

The idea is to help hotels set achievable goals commensurate with their capabilities, Broennan said. “This is a certification program. It really includes a lot of training, a lot of measurement tracking tools, these customized programs. 

“That is what makes all the difference,” she said. “It definitely is a commitment on the part of the hotels, but they don’t have to pay anything for it.” 

As of last week, just a few hotels had signed up, including La Posada and Inn of the Governors. But several others have expressed interest, according to Broennan. The goal is to sign up 10-15 hotels, motels, resorts, B&Bs and other facilities. 

Sam Gerberding, the general manager of Inn of the Governors on West Alameda Street, said the program is “a wonderful chance for the Santa Fe hotel community.” 

Gerberding said he hopes it will help his inn save some money. He also said he wants to increase the hotel’s appeal to eco-conscious travelers. 

“Over the years, we’ve been very conscientious about wanting to do more and being greener as a hotel, and we’ve integrated certain aspects of that throughout the years,” Gerberding said. “This is an exceptional opportunity for us. It will be helpful to have that little extra perspective and assistance in getting it off the ground.” 

The EPA funding will cover a year of services, and the Watershed Association is looking at the program as a pilot project. The organization hopes to expand in the future. 

“I’m hoping we’ll see some real measurable outcomes in pollution reduction and water conservation,” Broennan said. “And then we can grow the program to include a lot more hotels and restaurants, as well.” 

As part of the initiative, the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico and Santa Fe Lodging Associations, Santa Fe Green Chamber of Commerce and a handful of local hotels and lodges have joined forces to create a related working group.