Blogs
1. The Story That Hospitality Never Talks About
Ask any hotel GM what keeps them awake at night, and you’ll hear answers like:
- occupancy
- guest experience
- labour shortages
- online reviews
- rising operating costs
But here’s something almost no one in hospitality admits out loud:
Plastic waste from cleaning operations is one of the most embarrassing blind spots in the industry.
It’s the problem hiding behind the laundry chute.
Behind the housekeeping trolley.
Behind the back-of-house doors that guests never see but regulators, auditors, and ESG teams definitely notice.
And once you measure it, the numbers are brutal.
2. A Hotel Housekeeping Manager Told Me Something I Can’t Unhear
Six months ago, I was walking through a hotel’s back corridor with Mira, a housekeeping supervisor.
She pointed to a 240L yellow-lidded bin overflowing with empty 5L cleaning cans.
She said:
“This is what sustainability looks like when nobody measures it.”
The bin wasn’t full It was overflowing.
Plastic was spilling onto the floor.
I asked her:
“How often does this fill up?”
She replied:
“Every two days.”
That means one hotel just one was throwing away:
- 100+ plastic chemical cans per month
- 1,200+ cans per year
- About 350–400 kg of plastic annually
- Zero of it recycled
Multiply that across a chain of 40 hotels…
and you’re looking at tens of thousands of cans entering the landfill every year.
And guess what?
None of this appears in their sustainability reports.
Why? Because traditional chemicals produce no trackable data.
3. The Invisible Pipeline of Waste Inside Hotels
Here’s how the plastic problem unfolds inside a typical hotel:
Stage 1: Bulk delivery
Pallets of 5L chemical cans arrive weekly or fortnightly.
They’re heavy, bulky, and wrapped in even more plastic.
Stage 2: Storage rooms fill up
Most hotel storerooms are tiny.
So cans get stacked in corridors, laundry rooms, boiler rooms, or kitchen back-areas.
Stage 3: Dilution waste begins
Housekeeping staff:
- overpour
- spill
- mix incorrectly
- create inconsistent results
It’s not their fault the system is flawed.
Stage 4: Plastic piles up
Empty cans go into 240L bins.
Bins fill up quickly.
Bins are emptied frequently.
But because the cans contain chemical residue, they’re not recyclable.
Stage 5: No one logs anything
Nobody counts:
- how many cans
- how much plastic
- how much CO₂e
- how much waste
Hospitality runs blind.
And this is where the industry is exposed.
4. The Hidden Impact Guests Never See (But Definitely Care About)
Hospital guests say they care about sustainability.
And they mean it.
Recent surveys show:
- 76% of hotel guests prefer brands with clear sustainability action
- 60% will pay more for eco-conscious hotels
- 70% want hotels to reduce single-use plastics
Yet, behind every “green towel reuse” sign…
is a storeroom full of plastic chemical cans.
This is the contradiction that Earthy Tabs was designed to fix.
5. So, What Happens When a Hotel Switches to Tablets?
Let’s paint the before vs after differently than earlier blogs not with a table, but with scenes:
Scene 1: Back-of-house storeroom
Before:
Floor-to-ceiling plastic cans.
No space to move.
Staff frustrated.
After:
One small shelf of compact tablet boxes.
90% space eliminated.
Safety improved.
Workflow smoother.
Want to understand why storage matters?
Scene 2: Housekeeper refill station
Before:
A sticky, chemical-smelling dilution area.
Blue liquid everywhere.
Guesswork dilution.
Leaks and spills.
After:
A clean countertop.
A box of tabs.
A bottle.
Water.
Done.
No spills.
No errors.
Perfect dosing.
Scene 3: Waste collection point
Before:
Bins overflowing with 5L cans.
Staff dragging heavy plastic waste daily.
After:
No cans.
No bulky plastic.
Just recyclable cardboard and water-soluble wrappers.
Scene 4: Sustainability reporting
Before:
A blank line under “chemical waste reduction.”
No numbers.
No data.
No story.
After:
A full dashboard showing:
- X kg plastic eliminated
- X tonnes CO₂e avoided
- X m³ storage space saved
- X reduction in freight emissions
- X reduction in dilution waste
6. The Hotel Chain That Saved 1.2 Tonnes of Plastic (Unintentionally)
One hotel group we worked with didn’t switch to Earthy Tabs for sustainability reasons at first.
They switched because:
- they ran out of storeroom space
- they had too many chemical SKUs
- their dilution errors were costing money
But when they saw the Impact Calculator numbers…
their sustainability director literally said:
“We didn’t realise we were this wasteful.
We also didn’t realise we could fix it this easily.”
In their first 12 months:
- 1.2 tonnes of plastic avoided
- 4.3 tonnes CO₂e saved
- Storage footprint reduced by 88%
- Chemical waste reduced by 100%
- Cost-per-clean stabilised
This became their headline sustainability achievement for something they originally switched “to save storage.”
7. Why Tablets Solve Hospitality’s Plastic Problem So Easily
Here’s the truth:
Hospitality doesn’t need sustainability lectures.
They need practical, operational solutions.
They need less to store.
Less to lift.
Less to pour.
Less to waste.
Less to throw out.
Earthy Tabs checks all those boxes:
- No 5L cans
- No dilution mistakes
- No chemical waste
- No bulky pallets
- No excessive freight
- No dangerous goods handling
- No guilt
- No greenwashing
Just tabs.
Water.
Cleaning.
And proof.
8. What This Means for GMs, Ops Managers & Housekeeping Teams
Let’s break the impact down by job role because each one benefits differently:
For Housekeeping Staff:
- No heavy lifting
- Faster bottle refills
- Zero spills
- No sticky chemical stations
- Simpler training
- Better consistency
- More pride in their work
For Operations Managers:
- Predictable cost-per-clean
- Fewer reorders
- No chemical wastage
- No storeroom congestion
- Standardised SOPs
For Sustainability Managers:
- Hard data
- Measurable plastic reductions
- CO₂e reporting
- ESG-ready numbers
- Monthly dashboards
For General Managers:
- Better compliance
- Lower operating cost
- A story they can tell guests
- A genuine differentiator
- Future-proofing against regulations
9. Hospitality’s Silent Fear: Greenwashing Legislation
Here’s something people in hospitality rarely discuss:
Hotels are terrified of the new anti-greenwashing laws.
Why?
Because most “eco-friendly cleaning claims” in hospitality are:
- impossible to verify
- not backed by data
- inconsistent across sites
- based on trust, not numbers
But now regulators require:
- measurable reductions
- impact validation
- evidence-backed reporting
Earthy Tabs makes this easy because every tablet is measurable.
This is why many early adopters in hospitality didn’t switch for sustainability.
They switched to avoid future legal exposure.
10. What Guests Will See Next Year
Over the next few years, hotels will proudly show:
- sustainability dashboards
- CO₂e reduction badges
- plastic elimination certificates
- waste reduction numbers
- “cleaning with proof” statements
Earthy Tabs enables this from the back-of-house environment that guests never see.
Because real sustainability happens behind the scenes, not on marketing slides.
Final Words: Hospitality Can Lead Not Follow
The world doesn’t need hotels to “try” to be sustainable.
It needs hotels to prove it.
And the simplest place to start isn’t linen reuse programs or water-saving showerheads — it’s the plastic waste that piles up behind the scenes.
Earthy Tabs gives hospitality a way to:
- eliminate plastic
- reduce emissions
- simplify operations
- empower staff
- impress auditors
- win tenders
- tell a story that guests care about
All by replacing something as basic as cleaning chemicals.
If you’re in hospitality and you’re ready to stop hiding the bins — and start measuring the impact:
👉 Try the Impact Calculator
👉 Switch to Earthy Tabs
👉 Book a call for a hotel-wide evaluation
