The St. Athans Hotel is a green hotel, committed to running a sustainable business that will be around for generations to come. With this in mind we are consciously planning for ways to lessen our environmental impact.

For our specific green actions we aim to Refuse, reduce, re-use, repair, recycle, and minimise the environmental impact of our business, educate our staff, guests, and local area.

Recycling

All our glass, paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, tins, juice cartons (tetra paks), aluminium foil, batteries, light bulbs, used cooking oil (to bio-fuel producers), old mobile phones, wood (as fuel), metal (to scrap), cut flowers and teabags (to our in-house compost) – basically anything we can. We have an in-house wormery for our family & staff food waste. All our office paper is made from 100% post-consumer recycled waste, as is our toilet paper. Our recycled plastic bottle loft insulation is made from 85% recycled plastic bottles (Ecowool), and our carpet underlay is made from 100% recycled post-consumer fibres.

Repair

In our renovations we have a policy of fixing rather than throwing away. This is particularly true with all things made of wood and furnishings that can be re-upholstered – which we buy by default.

Re-use

Some of our furniture, pictures and carpets come from the refurbishment of 4 star hotels (that would otherwise be waste) or antique/retro (and second-hand) shops. Our old furniture we give away to charity or on Freecycle. We use reclaimed tiles for mosaics. Old towels are used as cleaning rags and left guest items (lost property) go to local charity shops.

Reduce

All our central room lights are low-energy bulb and strip lights low energy units (incl. new LED lights). We have fitted all our radiators with thermostatic valves; and insulate the outside walls behind radiators with heat reflectors; our showers have eco-shower heads; we lag all the hot water and heating pipes that we come across as we renovate; we have double insulated all the loft voids; fitted old toilets with water saving devices (hippos) and all new toilets have low/dual flush options. We also offer guests the opportunity to have their receipts emailed to them, instead of printed out.

Refuse

We have actively removed ourselves from many mailing lists that send us catalogues (although we still get some junk mail sent to us no matter how hard we try). We have opted for paperless billing where possible. We always choose the packaging free option where available. We also refuse to use soaps and cleaning chemicals that aren’t biodegradable.

 

 

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