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Redefining Green in the Guestroom Concept Amenities finds an answer in its quest to deliver plastic products that are completely biodegradable. Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Beth Kormanik

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It's often all too easy to throw out guestroom amenity bottles instead of recycling them. Even hotels with the best intentions can have trouble sorting out the tiny containers from the waste stream.

Knowing this, staff at Concept Amenities have been searching for a packaging solution that would be 100 percent biodegradable should it end up in a landfill rather than a recycling plant.

"My industry has been guilty of throwing billions of bottles and caps in landfills every year," said Gary Coward, senior vice president at Concept Amenities. "Plastic doesn't biodegrade. It goes into landfill and 300 to 400 years down the road it biodegrades. That's been a big problem. It wasn't at the forefront of people's minds four, five, six years ago. It's at the forefront now."

For years Concept Amenities had researched materials around the world and found some with promise, but no viable solution. Cornstarch-based materials are a renewable resource and not made out of fossil fuels as plastic is. But the fragile material has no elasticity and would shatter if a manufacturer tried to make a bottle out of it. To resolve that, manufacturers add traditional plastic, which defeats the goal of being wholly biodegradable.

Another material, called PLA, has the necessary elasticity. But it cannot be recycled with other materials and takes a relatively long time to break down. Only a handful of commercial composts accept it.

"Even though PLA and PFM have a great front-end story, they don't have a good back-end story," Coward said. "The Holy Grail hasn't been yet achieved."

Then Concept Amenities found Bio-Tec Environmental. The Albuquerque, NM, company patented an organic enzyme called EcoPure that changes the structure of plastic at the point of production. The additive allows the bottles to biodegrade in landfills in a matter of a few decades rather than the centuries it would otherwise take, according to Samuel Adams, senior vice president of Bio-Tec.

"We feel the corporations that are out there have an opportunity to help out the environment and reduce landfill levels," he said.

While the EcoPure additive is used in running shoes, water bottles and office supplies, Concept Amenities signed an exclusive global license agreement with Bio-Tec to be the only hospitality provider of EcoPure products.

Concept Amenities announced the initiative at the recently held Buyer Interactive Trade Alliance and Conference (BITAC) Purchasing & Design East event.

"This is a huge paradigm shift about to happen in our industry," Coward said. "It's a global first. That's a really powerful thing. We've got huge expectations of this, obviously, in a commercial sense, but equally important is our company is doing it’s best. We do have a strong social conscience."

The products will be marketed as the ERP Bio-Amenity brand. Concept Amenities registered the name "ERP," or Environmentally Responsible Product, to label products and identify that they can fully biodegrade in landfill, do not require industrial composting to biodegrade, and can be recycled. ERP formulations contain no sulfates, no parabens, no phthalates and no petrochemicals.

EcoPure products can also be recycled like traditional plastic. As an added layer of sustainability, Concept Amenities makes its bottles out of recycled plastic, not 100 virgin plastic.

Eventually, Concept Amenities will convert all of its products to use EcoPure, Coward said.
The first roll-out should happen in November, with the Luxor in Las Vegas as the first hotel to feature them in guest rooms.

The resort will convert its exclusive Nurture line of products used in the spa and guestrooms to Nurture ERP. The bottles and contents will be biodegradable, although the aluminum caps will not.

Rick Dandrow, vice president of property operations and chairman of Luxor Green Team, said the change will make a huge impact.

"We've really had a conscious eye and ear and pulse on anything that is sustainable and appropriate for our operations," he said. "I've got to believe you're going to see more of this happening. It's just nice that we're the first."

Dandrow said the products fit into the company's overall commitment to sustainability, which includes efforts such as reducing energy consumption, recycling and using earth-friendly cleaning products in the kitchens and guest rooms.

ERP products are a welcome addition to the green options available to hotels, according to Ray Burger, a consultant on green lodging and president of Pineapple Hospitality.

"Concept Amenities is leading the way with this particular type of packaging," said Burger. "We're very excited they're bringing it to the market."

Research and development on sustainable technologies continues to grow, Burger said, and hotels are paying attention.

"Green in general continues to march forward and actually increase in the pace of innovation in this economy," Burger said. "I personally thought green innovation would slow in this economy. But in our industry, it seems like it's accelerating. Companies are looking for ways to separate themselves from the competition, and green is a way to do that."

Research shows that guests are noticing. Burger cited the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study released in July that showed 66 percent of guests were aware of their hotel's conservation efforts, compared with 57 percent in 2008. Guest satisfaction was higher among these guests as well, the study found.
"There are a lot of proven products and technology out there that make it easier for hotels to go green," Burger said. "I don't see that slowing down. I see constant innovation in the lodging industry from suppliers and manufacturers to move toward more sustainable products."

Coward said the motivation behind Concept Amenities' quest for a truly biodegradable product is to eliminate the so-called "greenwashing" of the industry and restore transparency to what it means to be green.

"Organic, pure, biodegradable, green -- I think these words are all being abused," he said. "All we're trying to do is to put the message out to buyers and the suppliers like us to give those words back their integrity by giving them truth."