No more bottled water at Hyatt Hotels & Resorts. The company is switching from all those plastic throwaway bottles to filtered water -- which saves two kinds of green -- money and the environment.
According to the Container Recycling Institute, Americans buy an estimated 35.8 billion plastic water bottles each year, and fewer than 20% of those bottles are recycled. Additionally, the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, estimates that the energy required to produce each water bottle is equivalent, on average, to filling a quarter of a plastic bottle with crude oil.
So, providing filtered water to hotel guests makes sense. So does filtering your own water at home and refilling a re-usable bottle to take to the gym, work, and other daily travel errands.
Hyatt has contracted with Natura Water Inc. to provide guests in its restaurants with a healthy, safe, environmentally responsible alternative to bottled water. It's the first hotel company to work with Natura on a nationwide basis.
The Natura water system removes impurities from the local water source while retaining healthy minerals – thus eliminating the need for bottled water and the waste associated with its use. The system dispenses the water – still or sparkling – into specially designed re-usable glass bottles with sealed caps.
Right now, the filtered water is available at restaurants at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago, Hyatt Regency Phoenix, Hyatt Regency Reston in Virginia, Grand Hyatt Dallas Fort Worth and Grand Hyatt New York. Hyatt is planning to add more hotels to the filtered water over the next several months.
So, a giant green kiss to Hyatt for this eco-friendly decision. Perhaps it will be copied by Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Hilton, Ramada, Embassy Suites, and other hotel chains not mentioned.
