An Essay on Waste Management in the Hospitality Industry

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of waste generation within the hospitality industry, identifying major waste types such as food waste, packaging waste, and wastewater. It delves into the environmental and economic impacts of these waste streams, highlighting the challenges associated with their management. The essay proposes various strategies to mitigate waste, including food waste reduction through staff training and communication, recycling of packaging materials, and wastewater treatment systems. It emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach, integrating reduction, reuse, and recycling practices to promote sustainability within the hospitality sector. The essay concludes by advocating for the adoption of these strategies to minimize environmental impact and enhance the industry's long-term viability.

Running Head: WASTE GENERATED IN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Essay on Waste Generated By the Hospitality Industry
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INTRODUCTION
Hotel industries are the major consumers of resources, and they greatly contribute to the
generation of different types of wastes. In this era of green strategies and green economy, waste
management not only benefits the environment but also the hospitality industry. Hotels and
restaurants across the world need to have an effective system of waste management which
focuses on recycling, reusing and reducing wastes. This essay examines the types of wastes
generated by the hospitality industry and then proposing the strategies that can be adopted by the
industry to reduce the amount or type of waste generated. The major types of wastes common in
the hospitality industry include packaging wastes, food waste, and electrical and electronic
wastes (Pirani & Arafat, 2014). The strategies that the industry can adopt to reduce the amount
and types of wastes generated include recycling, reuse, and reducing.
Food waste is one of the major challenges facing the hospitality industry and also the
society due to the lack of appropriate training and guidelines for the management of food-related
wastes. In the process of attaining profits and delivering the best services, the hospitality industry
is compelled to provide high quantity and quality of food portions to survive in this competitive
industry which is eventually going to waste since the production of high food quality for taste
and presentation, huge quantity is wasted in the process (Edmund & Ferry, 2019). Food waste
occurs in both the post-consumer phase and the pre-consumer phase. The causes of food waste
before service include food safety, over-merchandising, unskilled trimming, staff behavior, poor
communication, inefficient production, overstocking, and unidentified demand. The production
of food waste and management is not only an environmental problem but also a financial
problem. The environmental impacts of food waste include toxicity, energy waste, greenhouse
gases, air pollution, and land waste. The economic impacts of food waste include disposal cost,

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energy cost, labor cost, and raw material costs. The proposed strategy to minimize food waste is
through food waste reduction strategy which is a reduction and prevention by staff training and
effective communication (Pirani & Arafat, 2014). Reduction strategy forecasts on minimization
and prevention of food waste at the restaurant through maintaining effective communication
between the kitchen, hotel, and customers and also regular food plan reviews. One of the
reduction strategies includes aligning and reducing the quantity of food being brought out by the
buffet staff by keeping track of the food wastage (Nyong, 2017). Conduct codes and rules should
be implemented to prevent food waste which should be followed by all the employees.
Awareness should also be created on the food waste reduction strategy among both the hotel
employees and the customers.
Packing waste in the hospitality industry is also one of the major types of wastes in the
sector and involves packaging products and containers such as cardboard, paper, steel,
aluminum, and glass. The packaging materials perform the major function of providing
information to the user and protecting the products which are being used in the production of
food in the hotels and restaurants and are generally discarded after the product inside has been
removed (Phu, Hoang, & Fujiwara, 2018). Packing waste is a leading contributor to the world
currently and responsible for 50% of the waste in the world. Marine-living animals are
suffocating on water bodies because of the pollution caused by disposed packaging waste. The
majority of the packaging waste that goes into the ocean eventually normally comes from places
like sewage, steams, and lakes (Pirani & Arafat, 2014). The proposed strategy of packing waste
that can be adopted by the hospitality industry is the recycling process. The process of recycling
involves steps such as the selection of packing wastes suitable for reprocessing or recycling,
segregation of the materials as per the codes, processing of the products after washing and

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shredding. The hospitality industry can start chemical recycling plant within the industry or
collect the segregated packaging materials and send them back to the manufacturers where they
are polymeric products are broken down and then fed back as raw material to reproduce the
original products (Kilibarda, Djokovic, & Suzic, 2019). Since the hospitality industry may lack
the necessary expertise and capital to carry out the process of chemical and mechanical
recycling, the best approach that should be taken by the hotels and restaurants is to facilitate the
collection, sorting, and segregation of packing wastes within the premises and then sending them
back to the manufacturers where the polymeric products are shredded into individual products
and then fed back as raw materials to reproduce original packing materials or other products.
Waste water is any type of water that has been used in some capacity that affects the
quality of water negatively and is no longer fit for consumption by humans. Waste water can be
categorized into surface runoff, commercial, and sanitary waste water. Waste water from hotels
and restaurants contain various inorganic substances such as helminthes, protozoa, bacteria, and
pathogenic virus (Papargyropoulou, Wright, Lozano, & Steinberger, 2016). Waste water
negatively effects on humans and animals and has detrimental effects on the environment.
Hospitality industry also commit a lot of finances into acquiring fresh water from the mains to
attain the large demands of water in laundry, cleaning, cooking, landscaping, and creational
water points (Styles, Schoenberger, & Luis, 2015). Water is a scarce and indispensable natural
resource, used in hospitality industry intensively for food processing and sanitary purposes,
producing and releasing huge quantities of waste water in the process. The proposed strategy of
waste water that can be adopted by the hospitality industry is the treatment process. Water
treatment is the process that can minimize the objectionable waste water properties and render it
less repulsive and dangerous to human. Hospitality industry should consider setting up water

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treatment system within the premises which consist of preliminary process, primary treatment,
and finally secondary treatment. (Gatt & Schranz, 2015) Before implementation of waste water
management within the premises, the hospitality industry should consider the ability to
implement the process within their systems, company size, and financial resources. Preliminary
treatment entail the removal of heavy settleable inorganic solids and floating materials. The
primary treatment entails sedimentation of organics solids that are suspended (Eras, Santos,
Gutiérrez, & Plasencia, 2016). Secondary process involves biological processes used in
removing organic matter such as sludge digestion and tricking filtration. The treated water can be
channeled back to water bodies or reused within the industry for air conditioning and fire
protection, landscaping and irrigation of the environment.
CONCLUSION
This essay examines the types of wastes produced by the hotels and restaurants and then
proposing the strategies that can be adopted by the industry to reduce the amount or type of
waste generated. The major types of generated waste examined in this essay include food wastes,
packaging waste, and waste water. The proposed strategy the industry can adopt to minimize
food waste is the reduction strategy which forecasts on minimization and prevention of food
waste at the restaurants and hotels through maintaining effective communication between the
hotel and customers and also regular food plan reviews. The packing waste can be reduced
through the recycling process which entails the selection of packing wastes suitable for
reprocessing or recycling and processing of the products after washing and shredding to
reproduce original packing materials or other products. The hospitality industry can set up water
treatment system within the premises to assist in treatment of waste water which can then be
reused for other purposes.

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