rant on!

So I find it totally amazing that the typical verbage on the card in the bathroom at the Columbus, OH FSM states:

"This is why our guests ask that we:

Change bed linens every third night........

Recycle Reuse Replenish"

YADA YADA YADA

And yet, they changed the 20oz waters in the lounge to now 6 and 8 oz'ers. YES, 6 and 8's!!!! So my 1 water with snacks, 2 for the room at night now is 3 in the lounge, 6 'to go' for tonight. With NO recycling bins!

They should just call it what it is...keeping costs low!! 3 bottles now is 9! Ugh I hate deceptive marketing!!!

rant off!

And yes, I have seen this 2.4BILLION times before, it just gets more and more laughable how they are "saving the planet" without recyling bins!

How about the tap?

I consider myself *somewhat* green, but I have to admit...those cards in hotel rooms annoy me.

YES, I want clean towels. YES, I want clean linens. NO, it doesn't matter how often I wash sheets and towels at home - I don't have to pay $199/nt. to sleep at home.

I usually launch the used towels into the bathtub or under the sink. I want clean ones!

I'm happy to recycle. I almost always pick the hybrid off the Exec Aisle if it's there. I drink lots of tap water. I always turn off lights and appliances when I leave a hotel room (although I get extremely annoyed if they have one of those systems that disables the A/C when I leave). But I still want clean towels.

[QUOTE=PhillyPhlyer40;14389459]rant on!

They should just call it what it is...keeping costs low!!
QUOTE]

That's exactly what it is.

I know that MI in Corporate literature and press releases likes to spout about how green the company is but it's really all about keeping the exploding costs of utilities in check and nice sounding PR.

A hotel to a point can control spending on controllables by doing with out and salaries and wages by not replacing open positions but when the local municipality tells you that the water/sewer bill is going to go up 16% next year then "going green" is about your only choice.

But at the same time I know of at least one select service hotel in PA that has cards in all of the rooms about water usage and recycling and even the local municipality has mandatory recycling but every Tuesday and Friday when Waste Management comes everything including newspapers, cans, bottles all go to the dump as there is not a single green recycling bucket on the property.

And I've already joked with a friend of mine who is currently the Director of Finance at a FSM in D.C. that while the cards are in guests rooms telling you to reuse and recycle, he and his staff go through thousands of sheets of paper a day for mostly useless and redundant reports(his words) that mostly get thrown away.

The one thing that I can say about this whole green trend... It has made some people a LOT of GREEN...

FYI the current COO/President of Marriott is extremely green - he's personally leading the effort......to him this is not just a marketing ploy and the company is following his lead although there are some additional things such as the recycling bins in the lounge etc (I can assure you they are in associate areas of the hotels though)....Arnie even drives a Prius to work (contrast that to Bill who loves fast cars and boats)

I speak as a climate change sceptic, but have no intention of rehearsing the arguments here. Nonetheless, my view is that "green" policies do no harm, the worlds resources are finite and the developing world aspires to our standard of living. There are insufficient resources for the entire worlds population to live the western lifestyle, yet more and more are doing so. We have to find a way to make those resources go further. I may not agree on the cause but the green initiatives' central aim is to consume less, stretching valuable resources.

Now, I think if we're really to believe that these cards imploring us not to have linen changed or towels replaced are anything more than a cost-cutting exercise modelling in a green dress, we need to visibly see other efforts. The cards have been in the rooms for years, yet no other evidence of "green" policies are visible. Hardly surprising they're viewed with such scepticism...

I realise for a hotel brand such as Marriott it's very difficult to display the efforts being made, lots of garish coloured bins in every room are hardly going to be popular, nor are directives around the hotel, or shutting off aircon, nor cutting carparking spaces, but if we are to be implored to "join in" with Marriott here, we as guests need to see something happening to "join in" with.

very well spoken Bob, to add to what MI is allowing guests to participate in: Arnie does have a personal blog like Bill's although I haven't been following it lately but he has discussed what what MI is doing as a corporation to be more green - for a while I also know MI allowed guests using the companies webpage to book a reservation to make a donation to the Amazon Rainforest but am not sure if this is still an option

Yeah that's nice but tell the truth. At the property level there is no enforcement of recycling. If a property wants to throw everything away and recycle nothing they can.

(Also, if you are trying to imply that recycling bins are in all associate areas than I have news for you that it's not even close. Most associate areas won't even have recycling bins and the ones that do will normally be using it for garbage. I've even see one executive chef using one for storage in a walk-in refrigerator. If you would like I will PM you a list of locations that are 100% non-green and that recycle nothing.)

Why not just post it here in this thread. Why should this be kept secret?

Because I've got friends and former colleagues at several properties and I do not wish to bring any possible scrutiny on them.

I just can�t stand when Socrates essentially spouts MI press releases and doesn�t fully explain that what he�s spouting is not even close to being what the day to day reality is at a majority of properties.

At most of the properties I�ve ever been at, worked at, or stayed at, recycling has been totally off the radar screen of importance.

As much as I�ll say for a location is that there are three FS Marriott locations in the Philly area. One of the three does no recycling at all. No guest rooms, no public areas, no employee break room, no executive office areas either.

FWIW, I noticed this past ski season that the Vail Marriott had recycle bins in addition to a regular trash can in their guest rooms. That is the only MR or SPG property where I have seen these. BTW, I did use it.

I've stayed in a few boutique hotels recently that have the recycling bins in the rooms.

Tasteful, small bins. Not the garish things we all have in our garages at home.

I've seen blue boxes for paper, etc in several Canadian hotels. But I have never checked that the stuff in the boxes goes into separate containers when it's picked up. I assume it does.

What really bugs me is that I'm careful to hang towels up so they don't get replaced every day. But virtually every time, I come back to the room to see the used ones gone and fresh towels in their place.

I do want fresh towels every day...sheets can be every other unless i am at a beach place (sand gets all over, even if you shower multiple times..) or at a place where i am paying a zillion bucks a night....

I did see lots of recycling bins at the Baltimore Waterfront hotel a couple weeks back, and they even had a (presumably recycled) green plastic bag that you could put all your recyclable trash into...THAT i used.....