Hotels Take Sustainability To A New Level

Walking down the Las Vegas strip, one might think that the city that never sleeps is anything but sustainable. The lights never go off, the buffet tables are always full and the open entrances push air conditioning out onto the sidewalks. But, what happens behind the scenes might surprise you.

On a recent vacation with my husband, I stopped in Sin City to visit with a reader and was granted a behind-the-scenes tour of one of the strip’s popular resorts. In addition to discussing the impressive housekeeping operation for such a large hotel, we specifically addressed a number of sustainable initiatives in place.

Of course, the resort features what has become almost common-practice in hospitality, a linen reuse program. Encouraging guests to reuse towels and sheets has resulted in millions of dollars saved in water and labor. But what most impressed me is their recycling program.

I learned that many of the resorts on the Las Vegas strip participate in a very unique conservation of waste program. And it seems it was necessary to do so, since in 2014, a record 41.1 million people visited Las Vegas and each reportedly generated between 1 and 2.5 pounds of trash a day.

The sustainable efforts all take place back-of-house where staff begins the process by sorting trash to reclaim silverware, plates and linens that unintentionally end up in the waste stream. These unintended throwaways are recovered and processed, saving the hotel thousands of dollars monthly.

The remaining trash — 40 percent of which is excess food — is then taken just 12 miles off the strip to a 160-acre pig farm where it is sorted for recycling.

The thousands of pounds of food scraps feed the farms’ 2,500 pigs, while the plastic, glass, aluminum and cardboard are sent to recycling plants for reuse. Going full-circle, the manure collected at the farm is reused as fertilizer, and the pigs that consume top chef delicacies are butchered and sent back to the restaurants on the strip.

Las Vegas is a city that is known for its excess, and there is certainly more that can be done to reduce its environmental impact. But it’s good to know that the resorts are always looking for new and different ways to improve sustainability.