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Solid waste management in the hospitality

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 Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Review

Solid waste management in the hospitality industry: A review

Sanaa I. Pirani, Hassan A. Arafat*
Institute Center for Water and Environment (iWater), Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology,
P.O. Box 54224, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Solid waste management is a key aspect of the environmental management of establishments belonging
Received 21 April 2014 to the hospitality sector. In this study, we reviewed literature in this area, examining the current status of
Received in revised form waste management for the hospitality sector, in general, with a focus on food waste management in
23 July 2014
particular. We specically examined the for-prot subdivision of the hospitality sector, comprising pri-
Accepted 26 July 2014
Available online
marily of hotels and restaurants. An account is given of the causes of the different types of waste
encountered in this sector and what strategies may be used to reduce them. These strategies are further
highlighted in terms of initiatives and practices which are already being implemented around the world
Keywords:
Waste management
to facilitate sustainable waste management. We also recommended a general waste management pro-
Food waste cedure to be followed by properties of the hospitality sector and described how waste mapping, an
Hospitality industry innovative yet simple strategy, can signicantly reduce the waste generation of a hotel. Generally, we
Hotels found that not many scholarly publications are available in this area of research. More studies need to be
Restaurants carried out on the implementation of sustainable waste management for the hospitality industry in
Ecolabels different parts of the world and the challenges and opportunities involved.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction (International Hotel Environmental Initiative, 2002), and this

The hospitality industry in many parts of the world is expected
to see signicant rates of growth in the next few years. For example,
Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) is expected to grow by 6% in
2014 in the United States (Berman, 2014) and by up to 5% in some
European cities during 2014 and 2015 (Milburn and Hall, 2014). In
the Middle East, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are
expected to see a boom in hotel revenue by 2016, which implies a
Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.93% (MeetMiddleEast,
2013). Indeed, while exploring the various literature concerning the
global outlook for the hospitality industry, it is clear that, in most
parts of the world, this sector is recovering from its nancial losses
after the 2008 global economic crisis and a positive outlook and
favorable transaction climate are anticipated in 2014 for the global
lodging industry (Fishbin, 2014).
This expansion in hospitality sector operations is complemented
by an expansion in its waste management operations. More waste
usually translates into a greater environmental footprint and
therefore more harm to the ecosystem. For example, a hotel guest is
estimated to generate up to 1 kg of waste per day on average
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 971 2 810 9119; fax: 971 2 810 9901.
E-mail address: harafat@masdar.ac.ae (H.A. Arafat).
amounts to millions of tons of waste being generated worldwide
annually. Therefore, the importance of studying the hospitality
sector in order to facilitate more efcient waste management
procedures cannot be overemphasized.
In the late 1990s, generally speaking, establishments of the
hospitality industry were not very concerned with their environ-
mental impact and a sustainable way of dealing with their waste
was not given much priority (Radwan et al., 2010). However, the
current situation is very different. There is much more environ-
mental awareness, which is clear from the booming number of
ecolabels that are being used as a means of certication for many
hospitality sector properties around the world. Most of these
properties are getting certied voluntarily. This is also an indication
of the heightened interest of guests/visitors in environmental is-
sues. As a result, waste management processes adopted by many
hotels and restaurants have changed from what they were 15 years
ago and various waste reduction strategies are being implemented,
including those which address food waste. In fact, with effective
waste management, a mid-size hotel can produce one-fourth the
waste generated by a similar hotel which is not implementing the
same waste management strategies (WWF-UK and International
Business Leaders Forum (IBLF), 2005).
For a hospitality business, the cost of solid waste management
includes various factors such as the disposal and transport of waste,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.07.038
0301-4797/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336 321

as well as associated labor costs (Todd and Hawkins, 2003). Table 1

Therefore, more efcient waste management can help lead to sig- Types of non-hazardous waste in the hotel industry [based on the work of Zein et al.,
2008].
nicant savings for the business depending on where the business
is located and the waste management regulations in that area. Non-hazardous Components Source
Other benets of ecofriendly waste management include an Waste Type

improved business image, reduced carbon emissions from the Household Food/kitchen Hotel's different
decreased transportation of waste, reduced costs due to smaller wastes waste, used or departments
dirty paper and
order requirements from suppliers, improved relations with
wrapping, plastic
stakeholders, reduced risks and liabilities, and health and safety wrapping or bags,
benets (Ball and Abou Taleb, 2010). composite wrappers
Not much literature is available on waste management in the Cardboard Packaging Hotel's purchasing and
other departments
hospitality industry. For example, a 2012 review of environment-
Paper Printed documents, Administration, reception,
related research articles published in major hospitality journals brochures, menus, guest rooms, restaurants
accounted for only 58 articles in the period from 2000 to 2010 maps, magazines,
(Myung et al., 2012). These articles were not only exclusively newspaper
focused on waste management, but also discussed other types of Plastic Bags, bottles (that Kitchen, restaurants,
did not contain bars, guest rooms,
environment-related research. Likewise, a 2013 review paper
hazardous administration
which accounted for publications from all over the world on food material), household
waste prevention in the food supply chain mentioned only one goods, individual portion
publication about cafeterias in Brazil, two publications about the wrappers for various
hospitality sector in general (one with reference to the UK and the products
Metal Tin cans, jar lids, Kitchen, restaurants,
other with reference to the Nordic countries), and one publication soda cans, food bars, guest rooms
about hotel restaurants in Norway (Schneider, 2013). When re- containers, mayonnaise,
sources can be found which discuss environmental management in mustard and tomato
the hospitality sector, they tend to lack the focus on the waste pure
e tubes, aluminum
packaging
management aspect of environmental management. And when
Glass Bottles, jars, asks Kitchen, restaurants,
these resources do discuss waste management in detail, they tend bars, guest rooms
to be in the form of reports which express strategies as recom- Cloth Tablecloths, bed-linen, Kitchen, restaurants,
mendations; with few having shown the effects of carrying out napkins, clothes, rags bars, bathrooms, guest rooms
such strategies. Moreover, reports concerning waste in the hospi- Wood Wooden packaging, pallets Purchasing department
Organic waste Fruit and vegetable Kitchen, restaurants,
tality industry tend to lack data specically on food waste peelings, owers and bars, guest rooms, gardens
(Marthinsen et al., 2012). plants, branches, leaves, grass
In this work, our goal is to provide a comprehensive review and
analysis of the status and practices of waste management in today's
hospitality sector may be further divided into for-prot and not-
hospitality industry. Such a review will be of relevance and benet
for-prot divisions (Partt et al., 2013). However, for the sake of
to management in the global hospitality industry, environmental
this study, by hospitality sector, the establishments being referred
organizations seeking to help green this major economic sector and
to are the hotels, restaurants, and cafeterias which operate on a for-
minimize its ecological footprint, as well as to decision makers and
prot basis. They are included in the Horeca subdivision of the
government ofcials desiring to benchmark the performance of
hospitality sector. Horeca stands for hotels, restaurants and cafe
s
their local hospitality industry. A number of subjects is covered.
(Marthinsen et al., 2012). We have decided to consider this as the
First, a range of denitions used in this eld is elaborated. Then, the
scope of this paper since the waste management practices at all of
quantities of waste generated in the global hospitality industry, as
these institutions are quite similar, and collectively they account for
well as the composition of this waste are discussed. Generally
a very signicant proportion of waste generated for the hospitality
speaking, waste from the hospitality industry consists of both wet
industry (Partt et al., 2013).
(organic/biodegradable) and dry waste. The wet waste consists
Food waste is any food that is not consumed by humans and can
primarily of food waste (Wagh, 2008), which can account for more
be generated at any level within the food chain (Okazaki et al.,
than 50% of the hospitality waste (Curry, 2012) and up to one third
2008). For the purpose of this study, food waste is dened as any
of all the food served within the hospitality sector (Marthinsen
food discarded as part of operations in the hospitality sector. This
et al., 2012). Therefore, food waste in the hospitality industry is
could be packaged food that is thrown away as it has passed its
given special attention in this review. Then, studies reporting on
expiration date, food preparation/processing wastes, and waste
initiatives for waste reduction in the hospitality industry are
from serving dishes and guests' plates. Food waste can further be
reviewed and the impacts of these initiatives are assessed. Simi-
divided into avoidable (food that was edible before it was thrown
larly, key global organizations working on minimizing food waste in
away), possibly avoidable (food that is eaten by some but not by
the hospitality industry are reviewed and their approaches and
others, or a single type of food that may or may not be waste
strategies (and the success thereof) are discussed. Next, today's
depending on how it was prepared) and unavoidable waste. The
international ecolabeling systems for the hospitality industry are
avoidable and possibly unavoidable waste may therefore be
reviewed, contrasting their method of certication and regions of
considered to be edible (Partt et al., 2010).
application. Finally, the challenges associated with implementing
waste management in the hospitality industry are discussed.
3. Characterization and quantication of waste in the
2. Key denitions hospitality industry

The hospitality sector, in general, can be dened as businesses Waste generation is considered by some to be the most
such as hotels, bars, and restaurants that offer people food, drink, or noticeable effect which the hospitality sector has on the environ-
a place to sleep (Cambridge Dictionaries Online, 2014). The ment, especially due to the fact that many of the establishments
322 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
which make up this sector, such as hotels, use large quantities of
consumer goods as part of their operations (Bohdanowicz, 2005).
The large amounts of food waste generated by the hospitality
sector can also not be ignored.
Various studies have shed some light on the typical waste types
generated at hotels. For instance, aluminum, plastics, glass, steel,
cardboard and food waste were cited as being the main compo-
nents of hotel waste in some studies (Axler, 1973; Kirk, 1995). As per
another study (Zein et al., 2008), the components of hotel waste
along with their sources are shown in Tables 1 and 2, which show
non-hazardous and hazardous types of waste, respectively. It must
be remembered, though, that these are not exhaustive lists of the
components, although they do mention all of the most signicant
components. For instance, sometimes hotels produce other types of
wastes, such as bulky items (e.g. furniture), construction and de-
molition waste (e.g. concrete, pipes, etc.), discarded electronics and
ofce appliances, and used refrigerating equipment (Zein et al.,
2008). It is also clear from Table 1 that multiple types of waste
tend to be generated at individual locations. This is a concept which
will be elaborated further when discussing waste mapping.
The relative percentage of each of these different waste types
also varies by establishment. The waste composition values, pro-
vided by different publications in chronological order, are pre-
sented in the rst section of Table 3. Only publications which have
specically reported quantities for waste types constituting hos-
pitality waste are mentioned. It can be noticed that the percentage
of organic/food waste is decreasing over the years. This is similar to
the trend noticed for municipal solid waste in the United States
during the mid-1900s. As the standard of living in the USA
increased, its municipal solid waste (MSW) composition changed
and reected an increased use of plastic and paper packaging
(Louis, 2004). Nevertheless, the fact that the relative percentage of
organic waste was going down does not indicate that less food
waste was being generated. With the growth of the hospitality
industry (from 1990 to 2000, the number of hotel and lodging
properties in the United States grew from 45,020 to 53,500
(American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), 2014)), the
amount of organic/food waste also increased. However, the rate of
increase of organic waste was not as high as that of packaging and
thus the relative percentage of organic/food waste decreased.
The second part of Table 3 shows reported estimations of waste
generated daily in a hotel guest room. An older source published in
1973 mentioned how, in general, guest rooms generated about
0.91 kg of waste per day, while quality dining rooms and the hotel
Table 2
Types of hazardous waste in the hotel industry [based on the wok of Zein et al.,
2008].
Hazardous Waste Type Source
Frying oil Kitchen, restaurants
Mineral oil Maintenance service
Pain and solvent residues Maintenance service
Flammable material Kitchen, garden,
(gas, petrol, etc.) maintenance service
Fertilizers and chemicals Garden
(insecticides, fungicides,
herbicides)
Cleaning chemicals Maintenance service
Ink cartridges Administration
IT Disks and CD's Administration, guest rooms
Batteries Maintenance
service, administration, guest rooms
Cleaning chemicals and Laundry room
solvents used in dry cleaning
Fluorescent lights, neon tunes Maintenance service
and long-life bulbs
kitchen produced about 0.45 kg of waste per guest meal served
(Axler, 1973). On comparison with Shanklin et al. (1991), it can be
initially perceived that the daily waste generated per room has
halved from 1973 to 1991. However, if the waste generated on
checkout days is considered, then the rates from both studies
become similar. On the other hand, Earle and Townsend (1991)
reported the waste generated daily per room to vary from 1.81 to
3.18 kg. In the same paper, Earle and Townsend (1991) mention a
waste audit conducted prior to their study, through which it was
found that the waste production in guest rooms in the Orlando area
ranged from 0.23 to 12.93 kg per day. A third publication mentions
how, on the global scale, a hotel guest produces about 1 kg of waste
per day (Losanwe, 2013). All these values, in general, and the values
obtained from Earle and Townsend (1991) in particular, explain
how there is much variation between hotels when it comes to how
much waste per room they are generating on a daily basis. This is
because the waste generation rate depends on many variables such
as the hotel type, guest attributes, guest and employee activities,
and occupancy rate (Snarr and Pezza, 2000). All the studies
mentioned here collectively account for a large time span. Although
signicant variation has been observed in the results, the most
common value was around 0.45e0.91 kg per day per room. How-
ever, it must be mentioned that, as observed from the second part
of Table 3, there is not much diversity when it comes to the region
of the studies. It would be interesting to see how these values for
specic waste generation and composition would be different for
properties in, for example, Asia or the Middle East, for which no
such values were found.
The last part of Table 3 specically refers to restaurants. About
95% of a restaurant's general waste could typically be recycled or
composted (Nielsen and Green Restaurant Association, 2004), and
as is clear from the solid waste breakdown, the fraction of organics
in restaurant waste is almost double that of hotels. Since hotels
have more expansive operations, it is expected that they would
generate a greater proportion of other types of wastes such as paper
and plastics, than restaurants. Additionally, the two entries in the
last part of Table 3 show how organics are a more signicant
component of the waste from restaurants in Malaysia than of the
waste from restaurants in Chicago. This is paralleled by many
studies which show a greater proportion of organics in the
municipal solid waste generated in developing countries
(Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata, 2012; Karak et al., 2012). Last but not
least, Swedish best practice has shown that efcient waste man-
agement can reduce the quantity of unsorted waste per guest-night
to only 50 g (Bohdanowicz, 2006). This is much smaller than the
values reported in Table 3 and so gives an idea of how much room
for improvement there is.
4. Solid waste management in the hospitality industry
From a sustainability perspective, the improvement of waste
management practices of the hospitality industry is a pivotal part of
its overall green strategy. This issue must be addressed not only by
the staff of the establishments at the different stages of operation
(front-of-house, back-of-house, etc.), but also the administration
must draw out strategies which would encourage guests to
generate less waste. Though the latter is addressed more easily in
some places than others, due to the nature of the guests fre-
quenting the property and their ecofriendly tendencies, this is
something which eventually needs to be addressed by hotels and
restaurants all over the world. This is especially true when
considering food waste, due to the fact that it is a type of waste that
is very difcult to reuse, and so once generated by the guest, there is
little the staff can do to reuse it. Yes, it may be used to produce
compost or renewable energy, but this is generally not considered
 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336 323

Table 3
Results from various studies on quantiers and composition of hospitality waste. The top section presents waste composition values, the middle section shows reported
estimations of waste generated daily in a guest room, and the bottom section shows data on waste generation and composition in restaurants.

Reference Study location Study period Waste quantities/calculation Data source

(Shanklin et al., 1991) Toronto 1990 46.4% food waste (dened as leftovers and returns from Study of 1 hotel
restaurant), 26.5% glass, 11% newspaper, 9.17% cardboard,
and 7% plastic
(Winter and New York Not dated 39.9% paper, 27.8% food/organics, 7.6% glass, 7.0% plastic, Waste composition analysis
Azimi, 1996) 6.7% yard waste, 6.1% metal, 4.3% other, 0.2% hazardous waste for the New York City hotel industry
(Alexander, 2002; Los Angeles 1991e1993 46% food waste, 25.3% paper, 11.7% cardboard, 6.7% plastics, Study of 25 hotels
Evans, 2008) 5.6% glass, and 4.5% metals
(WRAP UK, 2012a,b) UK 2009e2010 41% food waste, 13% paper, 9% cardboard, 10% plastics, 14% glass, Study of 138 hospitality
and 13% other industry businesses
(Partt et al., 2013) UK 2012 37% food waste, 18% paper, 7% cardboard, 15% plastics, 10% glass, Study of 35 hotels
and 13% other

(Earle and Florida 1990e1991 Average rate of waste generation during the study ranged from Study of six properties
Townsend, 1991) 60.2 kg per room per month for the Comfort Inn to 99.9 kg per room
per month in the upscale Hilton at Walt Disney World Village
(Shanklin et al., 1991) Chicago 1991 Room waste/night 0.45 kg per room and 0.91 kg per suite on non- Study of one hotel
checkout days. These rates doubled on checkout days

(Majid, 2007) Malaysia 2006 71.73% organic waste [food wastes]; 5.77% paper; 8.06% cans; Study of 10 restaurants
5.07% plastics [bottles/bags]; 2.68% glass; 5.13% yard wastes; on the island
1.56% other
(VanWaning, 2010) Chicago 2009 60.3% organic waste; 19.6% paper; 6.7% plastics; 4.1% construction Sample of 20 outlets
& demolition waste; 6.2% glass; 1.8% metal; 0.8% textiles;
0.4% beverage containers; 0.1% inorganics

as favorable an alternative as being used to feed people, as
emphasized by the food use hierarchy (European Union
Committee, 2014).
There are many factors which affect how a certain property
processes its waste and to what extent it implements recycling.
These factors include the location of the property, the type of ma-
terials being recycled, and the availability of sorting/recycling
facilities in its locality. Once implemented, the success of a recycling
program depends on factors such as the availability of buy-back
centers, waste management contractors' willingness to partici-
pate in recycling programs, and effective employee education
programs (Shanklin and Hackes, 2001). The adoption of environ-
mental practices by a hotel also depends on factors such as the
hotel size, age, the chain it belongs to, and stakeholder pressure


(Alvarez Gil et al., 2001). For example, the Radisson SAS hotels have
reported an average of 3.1 kg of unsorted waste/guest-night chain-
wide. This is much greater than the chain-wide average for Scandic
Hotels (located in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Germany,
the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland), which reported an average
of 0.515 kg of unsorted waste/guest-night (Bohdanowicz, 2006).
In addition, a study of 52 hotels in Ghana found that larger prop-
erties with higher stars ratings were found to implement
environmentally-friendly strategies to a greater extent than smaller
properties (Mensah, 2006).
Another study investigated the policies at eight properties in
Mexico, four of which were owned by Mexicans and four by
Americans. The managers of these hotels answered surveys
through which it was found that the American-owned hotels had
implemented more environmental strategies, such as those related
to waste management, earlier than the Mexican-owned hotels. The
hotels owned by Mexicans seemed to have put such environmental
policies into practice mainly in response to legal pressure (Revilla
et al., 2001). A study which looked into the implementation of
environmental sustainability innovations in 49 hotels and ski re-
sorts in North America found that simpler innovations were more
often implemented and persuasive property managers were found
to have the greatest effect on the implementation of such in-
novations. Other signicant factors were the perceived relative
benets of the innovation and the hotel's general innovativeness
(Smerecnik and Andersen, 2011). In terms of the perceived benets
of green business practices from the perspective of a property
manager/owner, another study carried out in the USA (Nicholls and
Kang, 2012) found that the most important benets were the
improvement of the property's image, the improvement in the
relationship with the local community, an increase in customer
satisfaction, the marketing advantage over competitors, increased
protability, and the increase in employee satisfaction, in
descending order of importance. Yet another study involving 190
Vietnamese hotel managers found that innovation characteristics
and external environment characteristics such as observability
and perceived competition, respectively, had a greater effect on the
adoption of environmental practices by hotel managers. In contrast,
characteristics such as the size of the hotel and its location weakly
inuenced the adoption of environmental practices (Le et al., 2006).
In addition, with respect to how hotel executives rate the impor-
tance of different issues when it comes to implementing a solid
waste program, a study carried out in the United States found that,
among several factors, waste disposal fees was the most important
factor. This was followed by a positive public image and then leg-
islative restrictions. The least important factors were corporate
policy and guest/community demands (Shanklin et al., 1991).
Moreover, though sustainable practices are becoming more and
more popular, changes in policy and regulation, followed by proper
enforcement and monitoring, are still seen as the most effective
ways to bring about measurable change throughout an entire
country (Ball and Abou Taleb, 2010). As an example, restaurateurs
in Japan have urged the state to be more proactive if they would like
to see the restaurants implement ecofriendly practices in a more
effective manner (Kasim and Ismail, 2012).
4.1. Waste minimization in the hospitality industry
When one thinks of waste management, terms such as recycling
and waste-to-energy are often remembered. However, it is the
waste management hierarchy which helps hotel and restaurant
administrations make decisions in terms of which waste manage-
ment strategies should be employed under different situations. It is
not wise to consider only one option such as recycling to solve a
324 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
property's waste management problems. Rigidly set recycling tar-
gets may not lead to the environmental advantages expected. For
example, to recycle a particular material, the hotel may have to
send it very far, and this would actually lead to a carbon footprint
much greater than the savings from the actual recycling. It is
therefore recommended that when using tools to decide on waste
management options, each situation should be assessed individu-
ally by the hospitality property administration from the environ-
mental, social and nancial perspectives (Chertow, 2000).
The waste management hierarchy is only one step of the waste
management process pursued in the hospitality industry. Fig. 1
shows a proposed version of this waste management process. We
compiled this gure after consulting various literature, primarily
Radwan et al. (2010, 2012). As is evident, various factors such as
prevalent legislative and economic constraints affect the decisions
made by the hospitality property management when it comes to
how they should deal with their waste. For effective waste man-
agement, the establishment must have a good relationship with its
waste services provider, and what waste treatment operations the
property decides to have on site, if any, depend on what facilities its
Fig. 1. SWM practices model for the hospitality sector [based on the work of Radwan et al., 2012, 2010].
waste service provider offers and at what cost. A waste audit must
also be carried out by the establishment at regular intervals, in
addition to the daily waste generation statistics it keeps a record of.
It is the results of such audits which enable the hotel/restaurant to
actually calculate the cost of different waste treatment options.
The process outlined in Fig. 1 integrates green purchasing as one
of its steps. Green purchasing (also referred to as purchasing with
Eco-Intelligence (Cummings, 1997)) is dened as the purchase of
products and services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human
health and the environment when compared with competing
products and services that serve the same purpose (Remolador,
2011). Green purchasing can be applied in the hospitality sector
for products such as ofce supplies and cleaning products. Using
such green products also tends to lead to a smaller amount of waste
generation due to the fact that they are not as packaging-intensive
and the packaging that they do have is recyclable. For example, in
the case of most types of paper, it is advisable to buy products with
a minimum of 20% post-consumer content (Snarr and Pezza, 2000).
Yet another notable feature of the process described in Fig. 1 is the
fact that it clearly makes it compulsory for the hotel/restaurant staff
 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336 325

Table 4
Global studies on waste reduction in the hospitality industry.

Reference Country Initiative/Impact Conditions of the study/Comments

(Shanklin United States Practices implemented most frequently included collapsing cardboard boxes Study of 13 hotel corporations and
et al., 1991) (55.6%), sorting waste (46.7%), crushing glass and aluminum (55.6%), and baling 32 individual properties
paper and cardboard (28.9%). The materials being recycled most frequently
included computer and ofce paper (61.1%), aluminum cans (55.6%), glass
(33.3%), cardboard (27.8%), newspaper print (11.1%), and grease and fat (11.1%).
Other materials being recycled included magazines, guest soap, steel and
overhead transparencies.
(Cummings, United The resort's recycling efforts helped it divert an estimated 401 tons of materials Study of a mega-resort in
1997) States from the local landll during 10 months. The resort permits employees to take Las Vegas.
home the empty plastic buckets in which the pastry shop receives cream
toppings and its cooperation with a local creamery has resulted in the reuse of
hundreds of plastic ice cream tubs each month. The resort also has impact
printing ribbons re-inked and laser printer cartridges re-lled.
(Knowles et al., United Over 90% of respondents said that they had taken action to reduce their effect on Study of 150 London hotels
1999) Kingdom the environment. 64% of the sample claimed that they were taking steps that
were intended to reduce consumption of resources. About 50% said they were
exploiting reusable items. 67% of the sample had taken action to recycle
materials; 64% cited recycled glass, 42% paper and 25% metal. Recycling of
cardboard and plastics was reported by 19% of respondents.
(Trung and Vietnam About 60% of the surveyed hotels indicated that their food waste is sold to local Survey of 50 hotels
Kumar, collectors as animal feed, while about 10e30% of solid waste is sold to local
2005) collectors for recycling. The recyclable dry solid wastes (plastic bottles, paper,
carton boxes, and cans), which account for 10e30% of total waste, are sold to
local scrap collectors for recycling. Common good practices observed in the
surveyed hotels included avoiding unnecessary photocopying, using double-
sided copying, reusing carton boxes for storage purposes, reusing remaining
toilet paper rolls and soaps from guest rooms for internal use, relling used laser
printers cartridges and shampoo bottles, purchasing products (e.g. shampoo,
soft-drink) in bulk, and checking the quantity of food products still available
before issuing a purchase requisition.
(Bohdanowicz, Sweden and In Sweden 80% of hotels and in Poland 30.6% of hotels had an active waste 349 hoteliers participated in an
2006) Poland sorting and recycling program. Other waste minimization strategies included email-based survey
donation of hotel furniture and equipment (60% for Sweden, 50.8% for Poland),
reusable food and detergent packaging (61.8% for Sweden, 50% for Poland), and
donation of leftover, good quality food (17.3% for Sweden, 32.3% for Poland).
(Szuchnicki, United States The Grille Zone has reduced their total waste per day to half of a 55-gallon This is a certied green casual
2009) trashcan whereas a restaurant of similar size, without recycling procedure dining restaurant located in Boston.
would produce 10e12 bags of garbage per day.
(McAdams Canada A compost program was created to help divert organic material from landll. Study associated with
and Massow, 2013) The restaurant eliminated the use of drinking straws in the restaurant in order the restaurant at the University
to reduce its use of petroleum based plastics. of Guelph's School of Hospitality
& Tourism Management

to be trained about the property's waste management strategy.
Indeed, a green waste management strategy cannot be executed
without the cooperation of the staff, and so they must be trained
accordingly.
4.2. Initiatives for waste reduction in the hospitality industry with
global examples
Table 4 presents a compilation of studies carried out in different
parts of the world on the subject of waste reduction in the hospi-
tality industry. All of the references cited in Table 4 are scholarly
publications which have been listed in chronological order. The last
two studies are specically concerning restaurants, while the rest of
the studies were conducted on hotels. Almost all of the studies cited
the implementation of waste reduction strategies in the form of
segregating waste and recycling.
Yet other strategies mentioned in the table are waste volume
reducing strategies such as collapsing cardboard boxes, crushing
glass and aluminum, and baling paper and cardboard; making use
of reusable items; donation of hotel furniture and equipment;
printing/copying double-sided; donating leftover food or selling it
to be used as animal feed or turning it into compost; purchasing
goods in bulk; and eliminating the use of drinking straws in the
restaurants. Other strategies not mentioned in the table include
color-coding bins for easy training of staff and clear segregation,
using clear plastic garbage bags so that the waste type may be
effectively identied, including information in each room about the
property's waste reduction policies, using less packaging in the
breakfast buffet by serving yoghurt and jam in dishes and butter in
small portions on plates, collecting unused toiletries from guest
accommodation to be used by staff (Repak, 2011), replacing bottled
water with ltered water, and using modular mattresses so that the
hotel would only have to replace the mattress tops (Ruben, 2011).
Moreover, waste can be decreased by using better designed prod-
ucts. This could be facilitated as a result of partnerships between
hospitality service providers and product manufacturers (Nicholls
and Nystuen, 1993). Along with the input of the end user, such
partnerships can help the manufacturers develop their products
and design them in more ecofriendly ways, making it a winewin
situation for all parties involved. In the following subsections, we
discuss the waste reduction initiatives by continent.
4.2.1. Europe
Waste management policy and legislation is quite advanced in
Europe as a result of the efforts of the European Union. The Waste
Framework Directive requires waste management, as per the waste
hierarchy, to rst focus on waste prevention and then on reuse and
recycling or other recovery, through composting or waste-to-
energy processes. What is more, the Landll Directive requires EU
member states to divert biodegradable waste from landlls. It is
326 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
also required that recyclable materials are collected separately
(Owen et al., 2013).
The United Kingdom is quite ahead when it comes to waste
management and a signicant factor contributing to this is WRAP
(Waste & Resources Action Programme). WRAP UK aims to achieve
a circular economy by working with various businesses, individuals
and communities. This not-for-prot rm helps its clients to reduce
waste, develop sustainable products and use resources efciently.
The company also publishes statistics related to the hospitality
sector in the UK. Its 2011 study found that in the area of on-site
treatment of waste, the most common technology used by hospi-
tality establishments in the UK was the macerator, which is an in-
sink grinder that enables food waste to be ushed away to the
sewer (Kelly, 2011), though even this was only used by 7% of
businesses. The next most common technologies were balers (4%),
compactors (2%) and glass crushers (1%) (Kelly, 2011). All of these
technologies help reduce the volume of the waste, which helps the
businesses by potentially reducing the amount they need to spend
on waste disposal. It also helps ensure maximum return on re-
cyclables and raises the number of vendors willing to accept the
materials (Estes, 2000). The 2011 WRAP UK study also found that a
number of UK businesses actually claimed having policies in place
which addressed waste minimization. These policies were most
commonly in the form of an informal commitment to reducing
waste (27%), followed by an environmental policy statement (25%),
supplier take back programs (11%), targets for recycling (3%), and
nally a waste management strategy (3%) (Kelly, 2011). Therefore,
relatively speaking, the UK has been able to achieve quite a bit
where waste management for the hospitality industry is concerned.
Indeed, as part of a study which screened 42 hotels in London,
Knowles et al. (1999) found out that 94% of the hotels indicated
implementing some ecofriendly strategies. Nevertheless, the actual
adoption of these strategies was noticeably lower; for example,
only 67% of the respondent hotels recycled their waste (Nicholls
and Kang, 2012).
The study mentioned in Table 4 which was carried out in Swe-
den and Poland shows the great attention given to waste sorting
and recycling in Sweden, which reects the importance of this issue
for the Scandinavian countries, in general. In contrast, the lower
popularity of waste sorting in Poland could be the result of the
shortage of sorting facilities in some parts of that country
(Bohdanowicz, 2006).
4.2.2. North America
There are a number of publications which shed light on the state
of waste management for the hospitality sector in North America.
For instance, the thesis Examining the Inuence of Restaurant Green
Practices on Customer Return Intention mentions how the Grille
Zone, a sustainability-certied restaurant in Boston, has decreased
its total waste to half of a 55-gallon garbage can per day. This is
much less than the 10e12 55-gallon garbage bags per day which
would be generated by a similar restaurant that doesn't practice
waste sorting and recycling (Nicholls, 2008; Szuchnicki, 2009).
With regards to hotels, a report by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) of the United States describes waste reduction tips for
hotels and casinos in Indian Country (tribally-owned properties). It
has the example of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North
Carolina casino and restaurants which compost approximately
544 kg of food waste per day. The compost is distributed to sites
where it can be used for growing plants and vegetation both on and
off the reservation. Yet another example is the Foxwoods Resort
and Casino in Connecticut which uses dewatering equipment to
remove water from its waste, and, as of 2000, was planning to
establish two materials recovery facilities on site which would
process both the resort's waste and waste from surrounding areas
(Estes, 2000). Similarly, The Hotel at Kirkwood Center, located in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States, has been able to divert over 45
tons of food waste as a result of a program which the management
put into place in May 2012. The program was the result of an audit
conducted at the hotel which showed that about 80% of the hotel's
trash could be diverted from the landll through composting (Iowa
Waste Reduction Center (IWRC), 2013).
According to a 2011 article on the adoption of environmental
initiatives in the lodging sector of Michigan, USA, the academic
focus on the greening of the accommodation sector appears to be
especially lacking in the US (Nicholls and Kang, 2012). What our
study has shown so far, however, does not seem to corroborate this
opinion. Though the academic focus on waste management in the
hospitality sector in the United States could benet from more
studies, relatively speaking, quite a few US studies on this subject
can be found in literature, as compared to other parts of the world
such as Africa and Australia.
As shown by the study mentioned in Table 4 which was con-
ducted at a Las Vegas resort, waste management programs, when
carried out properly, have the potential to divert hundreds of tons
of waste from landlls and even save properties thousands of
dollars every month in disposal fees. With respect to the Las Vegas
case, this is the result of the mega-resort's modest recycling pro-
gram, which consisted of a recycling compactor for clean paper,
paperboard, and metal, and a small bin for clear glass alongside
general purpose dumpsters (Cummings, 1997). Therefore, if a
more extensive waste management process was being carried out,
it can be assumed that the benets for both the resort and the
environment would be much greater.
4.2.3. Asia
When discussing literature related to waste management for the
hospitality sector in Asia, Vietnam stands out as a good example. In
a span of just two years, two studies were published on this subject,
by two independent groups. One of these studies is mentioned in
Table 4. Though the data presented in the study has been collected
as a result of only interviews and approximations made by the hotel
staff, such studies show a heightened awareness of green practices
in the country and are denitely a step in the right direction. Green
practices by the Vietnamese hotels, in addition to the ones similar
to those in hotels in other parts the world, include displaying signs
in the bathrooms of some 4- and 3-star hotels and resorts, urging
guests to conserve water. Also, some hotels are purchasing more
ecofriendly non-CFC refrigerators (Trung and Kumar, 2005).
Regarding other parts of Asia, it has been reported that food
wastage in Hong Kong's restaurants and hotels has more than
doubled in recent years (Mackenzie et al., 2011). In addition, a study
conducted at a small-scale Indonesian restaurant in Singapore
showed how the recyclable waste generated by the restaurant was
of an insignicant amount and that sorting of the restaurant's
waste by the restaurant staff on site would not be economically
viable. The study consequently expressed a need for the munici-
pality to get more involved so that waste from multiple venues
could be collected at one location and subsequently be sorted and
recycled so that economies of scale may be benetted from (Bay
et al., 2009).
4.3. Waste mapping
Waste mapping is a relatively new strategy which is being
increasingly used by organizations to facilitate more effective waste
management. It helps the establishments understand where and
how waste occurs, and how much it is really costing them (WRAP
UK, 2013a,b). With respect to the hospitality sector, waste mapping
involves monitoring waste generation at a property in terms of
 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
which types of waste are generated, in what amounts, and in which
locations. A waste map is subsequently created to reect this data.
The property can subsequently plan its waste management oper-
ations in a more efcient manner.
Fig. 2 shows an example of a waste map for a part of a typical
hotel property. The colored boxes show which types of waste are
being generated in various locations, as explained in the map key.
The waste mapping process, in terms of how the map can be used
once generated, is explained in more detail in Fig. 3. Areas where
the maximum amounts of waste are generated may be focused on
in order to make the most signicant difference in the amount of
waste sent to the landll by the hotel. The inputs refer to the
products and goods entering into the system at that particular
location in the hotel while the outputs refer to the factors which
contribute to waste generation at that particular location as well. By
analyzing the inputs and outputs, the ow of resources can be
comprehended and any hidden costs associated with the waste can
be identied and calculated. This would make possible the identi-
cation of strategies which may be employed to achieve both
nancial and environmental benets. Once these benets have
been quantied, they may be arranged in order of priority and then
integrated into the hotel's future waste management strategy
accordingly. Through waste mapping, opportunities for collabora-
tion between different sections of the hotel which produce similar
waste can also be highlighted.
Waste mapping for all types or organizations is gaining popu-
larity around the world, from places such as India (Green Yatra
NGO, 2014) to South Australia (Blue Environment Pty Ltd and
Tonkin Consulting, 2012) and Finland (Pa iva
rinta et al., 2004).
Various publications are available online which have outlined the
benets of waste mapping and how it may be implemented (Cox,
2002; WRAP UK, 2013a,b). It is reported that with waste map-
ping, an organization can usually be expected to reduce expenses
by an amount equivalent to at least 1% of its turnover at little or no
Fig. 2. A waste map for a part of a typical hotel (reproduced with permission from the Cyprus Sustainable Tourism Initiative; (Owen et al., 2013)).
327
cost (Envirowise, 2009). With regards to the hospitality sector in
particular, though examples of waste mapping have been cited
(Owen et al., 2013), it is difcult to nd any documents which
report the precise impacts of having implemented waste mapping.
This is to be expected as a result of the fact that this is a relatively
new trend in the area of waste management. Food waste mapping
can also specically be used to reduce the waste generated by a
property. The data collected as part of the food waste mapping
process would account for the spoilage, preparation waste, over-
produced food, and plate scrapings associated with each meal/
mealtime (Owen et al., 2013).
5. Food waste management in the hospitality industry
Food waste is reported to account for about 56% of the garbage
from restaurants and 28% of the garbage from hotels (Iowa Waste
Reduction Center (IWRC), 2013). These values clearly show how
signicant food waste is as a component of the waste stream of the
hospitality sector. Therefore, no ecofriendly waste management
solution for the hospitality sector can be complete without some
policy and/or action plan related to food waste.
It is known that of all the different types of waste, food waste is
one of the most important materials to divert from landlls due to
the fact that it decomposes to create methane, a potent green-
house gas which signicantly contributes to climate change
(United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2012). As an
example, it is estimated that if food scraps were removed from
landlls in the UK, the level of greenhouse gas abatement achieved
would be equivalent to that resulting from removing off the roads
one-fth of all the cars in the UK (Gunders, 2012). Minimizing food
waste has economic benets as well. For instance, if the United
Kingdom hospitality sector reduces its food waste by only 5% by
the end of 2015, this can save the sector a total of 250 million over
two years (Partt et al., 2013). From an ethical angle, food waste is
328 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
Fig. 3. The waste mapping procedure [based on the work of Owen et al., 2013].
a component of MSW that it is especially important to prevent
since so many people die of starvation every year. According to the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), as
of September 2010, 925 million people did not have access to
sufcient food resources, a number greater than the population of
many countries such as the USA and Canada (United Nations
World Food Programme, 2012).
As with other types of waste, wasting food also implies the
wastage of the resources used to create the food products in the
rst place. The Water-Food-Energy Nexus implies how water, food
and energy security are all interlinked (Wales, 2011). For instance,
food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total
global freshwater consumption and approximately 300 million
barrels of oil per year (Hall et al., 2009).
Much data can be found which accounts for the huge amounts of
food waste which is lost each year. For example, it is estimated that
30e50% (or 1.2e2 billion tons) of all food produced around the
world is lost before reaching a human stomach (Institution of
Mechanical Engineers, 2013). Moreover, of the 600,000 tons of
food waste disposed of in the UK in 2009, two-thirds could have
been eaten if the food had been better portioned, managed, stored
and/or prepared (WRAP UK, 2012a,b). With regards to the United
States, approximately 41 billion kg of food were lost by consumers
and food services in 1995. This was 26% of all edible food available
for human consumption in the country during that year (Sarjahani
et al., 2009). With respect to the hospitality sector in particular,
citing the example of the UK, 920,000 tons of food is wasted at
hospitality sector outlets in the UK annually, 75% of which is
avoidable. What is more, the amount of food wasted annually in the
UK hospitality and food service sector is equivalent to 1.3 billion
meals (Partt et al., 2013).
Quite a bit of research has been done on food losses in the global
food supply but not in the global food demand (Bender, 1994). Post-
harvest losses need to be considered more carefully. An exception is
plate waste in food service institutions which tends to be more
thoroughly examined than any other type of food loss; though in
this case, studies are mainly motivated by nutritional concerns
m and Carlsson-Kanyama, 2004).
(Engstro
5.1. Quantication of food waste in the hospitality industry
Various studies have accounted for the composition of food waste
in the hospitality sector in terms of how much is preparation waste,
plate waste, etc. Other studies have mentioned formulae/estimations
which give an indication of the scale of food waste generated in the
hospitality sector. Some examples of these gures are:
- In Sweden, plate waste is the single largest source of loss, be-
tween 11% and 13% of the amount of food served at food service
m and Carlsson-Kanyama, 2004).
institutions (Engstro
- In UK restaurants, 65% of food waste comes from preparation e
peelings, off cuts and anything ruined while cooking; 30% of
food waste comes back from customers' plates; 5% of food waste
is classied as spoilage e out-of-date or unusable items
(Sustainable Restaurant Association, 2010)
- UK hospitality and food service sector: on average, 21% of food
waste arises from spoilage; 45% from food preparation and 34%
from consumer plates (Partt et al., 2013).
 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
- According to a Swiss report, a typical food portion weighing
300 g and served in the hotel industry can lead to a maximum of
835 g of waste material, 780 g preparation waste and 55 g upon
disposal (i.e. what remains of the portion after the guest has
eaten and is therefore disposed of) (Zein et al., 2008).
- In Finland, it was found that restaurants belonging to the
catering sector discarded 19% of all produced and served food. Of
this 6% was kitchen waste, 5% was service waste, and 7% was
leftovers. It was therefore concluded that food waste in licensed
restaurants in Finland amounts to approximately 18e20 million
kg annually (Silvennoinen et al., 2012).
- The National Solid Waste Management Association reported
that, in the United States, cafeterias generate 0.45 kg of waste
per meal served; and restaurants generate 0.68 kg per meal
served (Shanklin, 1993).
- In the UK, an average of 0.48 kg of food waste is generated per
guest at a restaurant (Sustainable Restaurant Association, 2010).
- In the United States, restaurants produce an average of
45,360 kg of waste per outlet per year (Horovitz and USA Today,
2008; Jeong, 2010)
- For resorts/conference properties: food waste (kg/yr) [in Mas-
sachusetts and Connecticut, USA] 0.45 kg/meal*number of
meals/seat/day*number of seats*365 days/yr (Draper/Lennon,
Inc and Atlantic Geoscience Corp., 2001; Draper/Lennon, Inc,
2002)
- For restaurants: Food waste (kg/year) [in Massachusetts and
Connecticut, USA] number of employees*1360.78 kg/
employee/yr (Draper/Lennon, Inc and Atlantic Geoscience Corp.,
2001; Draper/Lennon, Inc, 2002)
These various food waste formulae/estimations/calculators give
an indication of the large variety of reported values for these
different quantities. For example, plate waste due to spoilage varies
from 5 to 21%, though studies carried out at food service in-
stitutions have shown that plate waste has the potential of being
eliminated almost completely (Engstro m and Carlsson-Kanyama,
2004). These variations are not only due to the different places
where, and times when, these studies have been carried out but
also may be due to varying denitions of what these categories
refer to exactly. Nevertheless these gures make the signicance of
food waste in the hospitality industry clear. It is interesting that the
nal equation in the above list relates the food waste generated to
the number of employees at the restaurant though it is the guests
who are the ones who actually generate more of the waste. Also, the
equation relates the food waste amount to the number of em-
ployees in general and not just the kitchen staff (as may be
considered a natural consequence of the signicant proportion of
preparation food waste). It can be inferred in such a situation that
the use of the number of employees as a variable provides more
reliability to the formula since this is a number which is more stable
in the sense that it does not change from one meal to another, while
the number of guests at each meal does. Moreover, since the
quantity being calculated is being estimated over an extended
period of time (i.e. on a yearly basis), considering a variable such as
the number of employees helps make the calculations less complex
(if the number of guests was being used instead, the average
number of guests during the year may need to be calculated rst,
etc.).
5.2. Causes of food waste generation in the hospitality industry
Before strategies which minimize food waste generation in the
hospitality sector can be discussed, it is important to shed some
light on the reasons why so much food waste is generated in the
rst place and what factors affect this generation. Amongst these
329
reasons are poor stock rotation, inappropriate storage of stock, over
preparation, poor preparation, and inadequate portion control
techniques (Mackenzie et al., 2011). In addition, it follows that more
expansive foodservice operations mean greater waste, although in
such cases, the waste per meal tends to go down. There is also a
relationship between the quality of the food served and the waste
generated. Fine dining outlets would serve smaller portions of high
quality food, reducing food waste. At the same time, such outlets
tend to cook dishes from scratch, leading to much more preparation
waste on their premises (as compared to when food is procured half
prepared, etc.).
Yet another determinant of the amount of food waste in a
hospitality establishment is the frequency of delivery of ingredients
to the hotel/restaurant. More frequent deliveries mean smaller in-
ventories and less wastage due to spoilage. However, this leads to
greater costs for the property and so oftentimes the establishments
may have to choose buying in bulk despite the risk of greater waste.
In addition, many high-end hospitality properties pride them-
selves on the food variety they provide to their guests. More serving
dishes tend to lead to more waste. Moreover, this experimentation
with new recipes may lead to more waste being generated in the
kitchen (throwing cooked food away directly as it did not turn out
as good as expected). The control of portion sizes is also a very
substantial factor. Hotels and restaurants must ensure that their
serving sizes are big enough to please the customer, while not so
large that they cannot be nished and waste is generated. Of course,
appetites vary from one person to another and so cooking the right
amount in such a way that all guests are pleased is virtually
impossible.
Other factors which greatly contribute to the production of food
waste in the hospitality sector include the style of food service and
the inaccurate forecasting of consumer demand. For instance, the a
la carte style of service is known to generate less waste than the
buffet style of service (Hackes et al., 1997). In terms of consumer
demand, while the establishments try to be as accurate as possible
in their demand forecasts to avoid over-spending on ingredients,
not having enough food to fulll customer demand is not a risk
most establishments are willing to take and so they prefer cooking
an extra percentage of food to be safe. In the case of the number of
guests being greater than that expected, kitchen staff may have to
cook dishes at the last minute, and this would also lead to food
waste generation, occasionally more than that which would have
been generated if the correct number of customers had been
cooked for in the rst place. Achieving the right balance is far from
straightforward (Mackenzie et al., 2011). This in turn depends on
other aspects such as knowledge of past guest numbers and pre-
dictability of the guest numbers. Predicting how much to cook can
be done using computerized tools, although many chefs prefer to
just rely on their own experience. However, it is not unusual for
circumstances to change suddenly at the last minute rendering
cooking quantities rather inaccurate (Mackenzie et al., 2011).
5.3. Food waste minimization strategies in the hospitality sector
Hospitality establishments' administrations have increasingly
become more and more aware of the need to reduce their food
waste, not only from the environmental perspective, but also due to
the cost savings this can yield for their establishments.
Fig. 4 shows the general foodservice process followed in most
hotels and restaurants, as compiled by us using various sources
(Amjadi and Hussain, 2005; National Food Service Management
Institute and United States Food and Nutrition Service, 2002).
This diagram also points out the stages of the foodservice process
where various groups of people (hotel/restaurant administrative
staff, hotel/restaurant food and beverage operations staff, or guests)
330 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
may take action in order to reduce food waste. In the context of this
gure, hotel/restaurant administrative staff basically refers to
more executive members of the kitchen staff such as the executive
chef, etc. This gure provides hotel policy designers with an idea of
which groups of people can take steps to make a most signicant
difference in the property's waste generation. To be most effective,
this scheme can be used along with the waste map of a property to
devise the most effective food waste minimization strategy. For
instance, if a waste map reveals that much food waste is being
generated in the area of the hotel where the ingredients are stored,
this is an indication that ingredients are getting spoiled before use,
which means that hotel/restaurant administrative staff must be
engaged to revise their food-ordering strategy so that less waste is
produced.
A collection of strategies to minimize food waste generation in
hospitality establishments is summarized in Table 5. These strate-
gies address food waste in terms of both source reduction
(e.g. menu engineering and activity-based costing) and post-
generation waste management (e.g. anaerobic digestion). There
are more references in the literature than those mentioned in
Table 5, which discuss food waste reduction strategies for the
hospitality sector. These references are usually in the form of
Fig. 4. The foodservice process (compiled using Amjadi and Hussain, 2005; National Food Service Management Institute and United States Food and Nutrition Service, 2002).
reports oftentimes by government agencies, encouraging hospi-
tality sector establishments to reduce their food waste and showing
them how this is possible. Some examples are Creedon et al. (2010)
and Integrated Waste Management Board (IWMB) (2001). How-
ever, Table 5 focuses on studies which quantied the impact of the
proposed strategy. Menu engineering along with activity-based
costing seem to be very effective at reducing food waste, so it
seems that awareness about these tools needs to be increased.
Indeed, activity-based costing has been shown to be a very
powerful tool (Vaughn et al., 2010) that can even be used for the
buffet style of service (Raab and Mayer, 2007). When combined
with menu engineering, activity-based costing enables food prep-
aration to become more predictable, making overproduction less
likely (Boonyakiat, 2012). With regards to food waste tracking, the
company mentioned in the table, LeanPath, is a US rm. The UK
also has a company which provides similar services: Trim Trax
(Compass Group UK & Ireland, 2012).
Reducing plate size has also been shown to help decrease food
waste, though, if multiple plates are available for the guests to use,
this strategy may not cause the full improvement which it could
potentially achieve. In buffet-type restaurants, posting signs telling
guests that they can help themselves to the buffet more than once
 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336 331

can also lead to a decrease in food waste, since guests don't feel a
need to overll their plates. Strategies such as ning guests for
wasting food are usually not looked upon favorably by the hospi-
tality industry, and in the rare cases they are implemented, it is
usually due to special reasons, including limitations on landll
space available in the city/country, as is the case in Hong Kong
(Hong Kong Environment Bureau, 2013). Instead, some strategies
are more successful in making a difference via targeting social
norms which lead to food wastage. For instance, in the UK, asking
the restaurant staff for doggy bags to pack up one's leftovers is not
viewed positively socially. Therefore, a strategy has been imple-
mented in several UK restaurants which would have the restaurant
staff themselves take the initiative to give the doggy bag to the
customers if they notice much food left on their plates
(Vijayaraghavan, 2011).
The act of donating leftover food in hospitality establishments
can get somewhat complex as a result of considering how long the
food has been left outside. Hence, a tradeoff exists between
donating the extra food to feed someone (consequently avoiding
food waste) versus the risk of individuals getting sick from this
donated food and the establishment reputation being negatively
affected as a consequence. Nevertheless, various organizations
around the world are engaging in collecting untouched leftover
food from hospitality establishments and distributing that food
directly to individuals in need. Some examples, mentioned in
Table S1, are the Annakshetra Foundation in India and the Hifth
an Ne'mah Program which is operated by the Red Crescent Society
(RCS) of the United Arab Emirates. We interviewed the manager of
the Hifth an Ne'mah Program and he informed us that this program
has successfully been in operation for the last 10 years. In many
cases, according to the manager, there is very close collaboration
between the hotel administration and the program coordinators.
Under this program, RCS staff go to hotels to collect and later
distribute leftover food whenever there is an event (e.g. wedding)
where a signicant amount of edible food leftovers is expected.
Another remedy, anaerobic digestion, is quite a well-known
strategy. But in this case, implementation tends to be done on a
large scale, and so the waste being generated must be sufcient to
nancially justify the procurement and operation of the digester.
What is more, in places where the cost of natural gas is already
low, anaerobic digestion does not make economic sense that
easily. Another bio-treatment alternative, composting, is increas-
ingly gaining importance around the world, especially for hotels
with extensive landscaping such as golf resorts, etc., since these
hotels can use the compost for their own gardening needs (Wang,
2012).
Other strategies to minimize food waste in the hospitality sector
can be implemented, besides those mentioned in Table 5. These
include checking deliveries to ensure that food is free from con-
taminants, packaging is not damaged, and perishable food has a
sufciently long expiry date; sourcing ingredients locally where
possible; ensuring that the rst-in-rst-out approach is applied for
the ingredients inventory; storing all fruits and vegetables in wire
crates to allow for air circulation; avoiding over trimming during
preparation; and minimizing the quantity of bread and starters
portions provided prior to the meal. In buffet-type restaurants,
several strategies can also be implemented, such as serving the
food in smaller dishes and replenishing them more often; freezing
food in portion sizes appropriate for later use; planning menus that
use food approaching its expiration date (Zeenny, 2013); rotating

Table 5
Global food waste reduction strategies for the hospitality sector (already implemented by hotels/restaurants).

Initiative Country Implementation details References

and impact

Menu Engineering Thailand Waste decreased by 45% during (Boonyakiat, 2012)

Activity-Based Costing
Food waste tracking
system
Changing from buffet to
a la carte service
Reducing plate size and
providing social cues
Decreasing portion sizes
Introducing a sign pointing
out that guests can help
themselves more than once
Fining guests for wasting food
at all-you-can-eat buffets
Offering guests doggy boxes
(more details in Table S2)
Donate food (more detailed
initiatives in Table S2)
Anaerobic digestion
Composting
the time period of the study.
US (LeanPath) Helped customers cut food waste (LeanPath, 2013)
by 80%
United Arab Emirates Implemented by a hotel and a Interviews by
noticeable decrease in food waste the authors.
was the result.
Norway Reduced the amount of food waste (Kallbekken and
in hotel restaurants by around 20%. Slen, 2013)
United States This study is the rst to show portion (Brochado and
size can be lowered 33% before it's noticed, Freedman, 2009)
and that reducing portion size reduces
overall plate waste.
Norway Reduces food waste by 20.5%. (Kallbekken and
Slen, 2013;
Sloan et al., 2009)
Hong Kong, Canada, The amount of waste reduced by nes (Blume, 2009)
Australia, Philippines is small, however.
UK (Too Good To Waste) The initiative could cut down the amount of (Vijayaraghavan, 2011)
food waste by at least 20% in every participating restaurant
United Arab Emirates; The food can be given directly to charities (e.g. (Food and Agriculture
Germany, Austria, Hifth an Ne'mah which delivered z175,000 meals in Organization of
Switzerland 2012) or to foodsavers who pick up excess food from the United Nations (FAO)
restaurants and take them to organizations that support and Food Wastage
people in need (e.g. Through Foodsharing.de more than Footprint (Project), 2013;
30,000 people have shared 25,000 kg of food) Foodsharing e.V., 2013)
UK This can be offsite (e.g. Cawleys Eco-eating which prevents (Cawleys, 2013;
the emissions of 905 kg of carbon per ton of food waste and Kenning, 2014)
feeds the biogas back into the national grid and the fertilizer
byproduct can be spread on the land to grow new crops) or on site
(e.g. Best Western Chilworth Manor Hotel where the digester
produces an average of 105 m3 of biogas per day, providing
approximately 57 MW of electricity annually).
US From the start of the program in May of 2012, (Iowa Waste Reduction
the hotel has diverted over 45 tons of compostable food waste Center (IWRC), 2013)
332 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
perishable stock at every delivery and cleaning coolers and freezers
regularly to minimize wastage due to ingredients getting spoiled
(Christensen, 2013).
Another factor of signicance where food waste generation is
concerned is the types of guests who are being served. If data can be
collected concerning food waste generation trends when certain
types of guests are in the majority (such as those belonging to a
particular profession), then this data can be analyzed and used for
more efcient planning when such guests visit the venue once
again (Go ssling et al., 2011). Similarly, for example, if it is known
that the guests at the hotel during a certain season will be families
with young children then the menu during this time can be
designed accordingly, as opposed to if the guests were going to be
mostly sports players, etc. Simpler strategies such as keeping the
skins on vegetables and reusing edible food items (e.g. using non-
served extra bakery items to make desserts) can also have a
noticeable impact on the amount of food waste generated
(Sustainable Restaurant Association, 2010).
A basic strategy which needs to be followed before any effective
food waste reduction can take place is waste monitoring. This
monitoring may be as simple as visual checks to as complex as
measuring the quantity of each type of food group which is thrown
away. An example of how waste monitoring can make a difference
is presented by the Intel Company. The company's corporate cafe-
terias decreased their pre-consumer food waste by 47% as a result
of the implementation of a waste monitoring system (Neary, 2010).
It is also very important to address legislation in this area, since
many a time hotels/restaurants do have great ideas concerning
what they can do to decrease the food waste they generate, but they
are reluctant to implement these ideas since this could put them at
a disadvantage relative to competing properties which do not
implement such measures. As a result, if there is a policy which
addresses these strategies, all properties would have to put them
into practice. Europe, in general, and the Nordic countries, in
particular, seems to be quite proactive where such legislation is
concerned. The Nordic Council of Ministers (2011) has a waste
prevention group which initiated a project on the prevention of
food waste in the retail and wholesale sectors. In addition, 2014 has
been declared the European Year against Food Waste (Bennett,
2012) (more details can be found in Table S1). Moreover, a 2009
report recommended the following policies to the EU Commission
to be implemented in member states (Monier, 2010):
- Introducing food waste reporting requirements and a stan-
dardization of methodologies for food waste calculation.
- Standardization of food expiry date labels.
- Establishing food waste prevention targets for each state.
- Recommendation of collecting food waste/biodegradable waste
from households and the food service sector separately.
As an example, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have
already put into practice some regulative instruments. For example,
in Sweden there is a proposed national food waste prevention
target and in Denmark there is a charter which can be voluntarily
adopted by establishments as an indication of their commitment to
food waste prevention (Marthinsen et al., 2012). Nevertheless, it
must be mentioned here that current laws are mostly concerned
with food safety. Such laws have the potential of both supporting
and hindering food waste reduction strategies (Marthinsen et al.,
2012).
Table S1 shows an extensive list of different organizations and
companies around the world which have implemented various
strategies to target food waste. Many of the organizations
mentioned in Table S1 employ one or more of the strategies
mentioned in Table 5. Table S1 accounts for the establishments
which launched the initiatives as well as the scope and impacts of
those initiatives. Some of the initiatives are specically for the
hospitality sector and others are addressing food waste in general,
and so food waste within the hospitality industry is also included in
their scope of reach. This is not an exhaustive list; we have
endeavored to include a variety of initiatives from all over the world
which are well-known, have had the greatest impacts, or are
innovative in nature. The United Kingdom and the United States
have the greatest numbers of such initiates. It is clear that a wide
variety of establishments has gotten involved in the quest to
decrease food waste whether they are governments or non-
government organizations (NGO) or even private individuals who
are looking to make a prot from the implementation of green
technology. Many of the initiatives have been put into practice
recently and so there is a lack of data regarding their success. The
number and diversity of these initiatives is obviously indicative of a
heightened level of awareness regarding food waste management
in the hospitality sector.
6. Ecolabeling in the hospitality industry
There are currently more than 100 ecolabeling systems world-
wide which exclusively target the hospitality/tourism sectors, in
addition to more general labels which can also be used for prop-
erties belonging to the hospitality sector. These ecolabels address
the various aspects of the environmental management activities
which should be taking place at an establishment, including waste
management. These labels can also be either global in their scope
(Table S2) or specic to a particular region or country (Table S3). For
example, more than 60 ecolabels exist in Europe alone. In terms of
the popularity of ecolabels, a study conducted in the UK found the
level of awareness by hotel personnel of local green initiatives and
ecolabeling to be higher than that of international initiatives (Leslie,
2007).
Ecolabels are largely voluntary schemes which can be very
expensive for a property to acquire and, depending on what part of
the world the property is located in, have varying marketing power
which is generally quite limited. After all, how much importance a
tourist gives to environmental issues is highly dependent on where
they are from. For instance, it has been reported that in the US
alone, 43 million people consider themselves to be eco-tourists,
who are willing to pay an 8.5% extra on average for environmen-
tally-friendly hospitality outlets (Cummings, 1997). However, this is
not the case for tourists from many other places. As a result, hotels
also shape their environmental policies accordingly; putting more
green policies into place if they expect to have more guests for
whom environmental issues take priority.
As a result of having so many different certications to choose
from, one would expect a property to go for the certication which
is the least demanding and/or expensive, although in such cases it
may be expected that the label does not have much value. The
Green Globe 21 and ISO 14001 certications both overcame these
issues and are gradually becoming more and more popular (Sloan
et al., 2009). This is clear from the numbers presented in
Table S2. Most of the ecolabels mentioned in both Tables S1 and S2
were established during the 1990s. The ISO 14001 certication has
been awarded the most but it must be remembered that this is a
certication for environmental management, in general, and not
only for establishments belonging to the hospitality sector. Some of
the national ecolabels, such as those for Italy and Germany, have a
large number of certied entities. This is usually because they
certify not only hotels but also tend to certify tourism operators,
tourist attractions, different lodging types, etc. On the global level,
specically with respect to the hospitality sector, the Green Key-
related ecolabels seem to be the most advanced with the largest
 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
numbers of certied entities. Green Key is supported by the World
Tourism Organization and the UNEP (United Nations Environment
Program) and is presently the largest global ecolabel for accom-
modation with a national administration center in each partici-
pating country (Losanwe, 2013). On the other hand, the Green
Globe certication seems to be ahead in terms of its geographic
reach, with certied establishments in 74 countries. The Green
Globe program was developed on the basis of Agenda 21 for the
Travel and Tourism Industry: Toward Environmentally Sustainable
Development, which was released in 1995 (Gordon, 2007). Agenda
21's action plan specied that tourism operations be revised in
many different areas including waste minimization, reuse, and
recycling.
Finally, the Certied Green Restaurant must be mentioned as
the only ecolabel in Tables S1 and S2 which is strictly applicable
to restaurants. It is only active in the United States and Canada so
far, but with no real competitor on the global scale it seems likely
that it would expand its certication operations to other coun-
tries very soon. With so many ecolabels, it is essential that
tourists and hotel guests be aware of greenwash which is a term
used to describe efforts corporations use to portray themselves
as environmentally responsible in order to mask environmental
wrongdoings (Sloan et al., 2009). It is interesting to mention
that a study examining differences in the implementation of
green practices between properties in Germany with and without
environmental accreditation found that the difference in levels of
implementation between the two groups was relatively minimal
(Chen et al., 2005).
With regards to waste management in particular, many of the
different ecolabels mentioned earlier tend to have similar criteria
in terms of requiring the sorting of waste, recycling of waste
where possible, purchasing in bulk, avoiding the use of dispos-
ables, etc. The Nordic Swan ecolabel is quite strict in this regard,
limiting unsorted waste generation to 0.5e1.5 kg/guest-night
(Bohdanowicz, 2006). Hotels certied by the EcoLabel
Luxembourg should sort waste into 8 fractions (Le
ge
re Hotel
Luxembourg, 2014). On the other hand, the European Ecolabel
species that waste separation by guests must be facilitated
(Zhang, 2010), while the Green Key Eco-Rating program requires
that food scraps and other organic waste be diverted from the
regular waste stream and composted (Myers, 2011). Finally, the
Green Seal, for its bronze certication, species that the default
setting for copying should be double-sided and that the property
should donate leftover food to a local shelter or food bank where
programs are available and where permitted by local regulatory
agencies (Petruzzi, 2011).
7. Challenges facing waste management in the hospitality
industry
The aforementioned sections of this paper have presented the
current status of waste management in the global hospitality
sector along with real-world examples of how the sector is
becoming more sustainable while giving recommendations which
would make this possible as well. It is important to mention,
however, that implementing such green strategies is not neces-
sarily a straightforward process. In some countries there are still
no sufcient regulations to support such ecofriendly initiatives
and, even if a supportive framework exists, implementing the
different strategies may not be judged to be in the best interest of
the property, either from a nancial, marketing, or social
perspective, etc. For instance, a hotel may be aware of the fact that
their guests, though concerned about the environment, are
accustomed to disposable toiletries (which usually carry more
waste) due to their convenience and functionality (Cummings and
333
Cummings, 1990), and making their guests comfortable would
have the highest priority.
As is clear from Tables S1 and S2, environmental management is
increasingly becoming a standard part of policy in the hospitality
sector. However, it is mainly the larger establishments which have
been implementing environmental management practices since
smaller properties do not always have the nancial means or
administrative structure to make it possible (Mowforth and Munt,
2008). Various studies have shown the managers of small proper-
ties as being less interested in carrying out environmental man-
agement, in general, and waste management, in particular, on their
premises. This is due to many different reasons such as the fact that
they are generating small quantities of waste which many waste
carriers are not interested in (Maclaren and Yu, 1997). Smaller es-
tablishments may also not have access to the relevant information
and guidelines or may not have the time or motivation to imple-
ment ecofriendly practices (Horobin and Long, 1996). This lack of
motivation is due to issues such as managers feeling that the waste
quantities their properties generate are not signicant enough to
make viable their spending of time and money on practices such as
sorting and recycling, and feeling that it was more the re-
sponsibility of larger properties to implement environmental
management practices. Another study revealed that small-sized
hospitality establishments' managers felt that more tools need to
be provided to them by the local governments to assist them in the
implementation of different waste management options such as
recycling. It was also felt that not enough support was provided by
external stakeholders (Dewhurst and Thomas, 2003). Though it is
true that each small property does not generate a lot of waste,
relative to larger ones; collectively all these small properties
generate very large amounts of waste and a large proportion of this
waste ends up in landlls. In fact, solid waste generation is
considered to be one of the most disadvantageous environmental
effects caused by small hotels (International Hotel Environmental
Initiative, 2002). In order to address this issue, small hotels in
close proximity to one another may work together to achieve
sustainable waste management targets. Composting is also a good
option for small hotels to use for their organic waste since it can
easily be done on a small scale and the compost would be of use to
the hotel for its gardens (Radwan et al., 2010). On the other hand,
while it is more difcult for small hotels to conduct an overall
recycling program, it is interesting to note that these smaller
properties are more likely to segregate and recycle the waste from
the guest rooms. This may be due to the fact that in large properties
there is more waste generated collectively in the guest rooms and
segregating all of it can become a tedious task (Nicholls and Kang,
2012).
Yet another study which examined the challenges associated
with sustainable waste management has looked into the reasons
why hospitality sector staff in Hawaii were not recycling food. The
staff cited issues such as: segregating the waste and subcontracting
waste operations to a separate food waste recycling company takes
too much time and is expensive; storage, transportation, and
logistical problems; health and sanitation problems; liability is-
sues; not generating enough food waste; being unaware that food
could be recycled; or not being allowed to recycle food waste
(Okazaki et al., 2008). Yet another barrier to food reuse is the
physical food characteristics and ensuring that the food complies
with food safety regulations. This limits what can be done with
leftover food obtained at the end of a meal, event, etc.
Indeed, change is easier said than done. The previous sections of
this paper have accounted for many initiatives being implemented
in the United States in the area of food waste reduction. Never-
theless, as per 2013 statistics, only 3% of food waste in the United
States was diverted from incinerators and landlls for use in
334 S.I. Pirani, H.A. Arafat / Journal of Environmental Management 146 (2014) 320e336
composting (Iowa Waste Reduction Center (IWRC), 2013) leaving us
with an example of how much more work needs to be done in this
area.
8. Conclusion
This study reviewed the literature currently available on solid
waste management in the hospitality sector. In general, there are
not many scholarly publications on this area of research, with many
references being in the form of practical reports published by
different organizations. This paper focused on the for-prot
segment of the hospitality sector, comprising primarily of hotels
and restaurants. The characterization and quantication of solid
waste in the hospitality sector was discussed and it was clear from
the studies mentioned that food waste is the most signicant
component of hospitality waste, being approximately 40% of the
waste from hotels and 60% of the waste from restaurants. As a
result, various global organizations, initiatives, and legislations
targeting waste food reduction in the hospitality industry have
been summarized in this paper. The majority of such initiatives is
being implemented in Europe and the United States. These initia-
tives are mentioned along with general solid waste minimization
strategies which have been implemented in various parts of the
world. One such strategy is waste mapping which is a relatively
new approach to waste management but has the potential to help
signicantly decrease the waste generated in the hospitality sector.
The waste mapping process is therefore described in detail in this
study along with the waste hierarchy which must be considered as
part of the rst step of any environmentally sustainable waste
management policy.
In this review, we have also shown how waste management in
the hospitality industry has improved considerably in the past 15
years. There is much more awareness and as a result, there are
many more initiatives and ecolabels which address this matter. The
sustainability of the hospitality sector depends upon the managers
of the various establishments which make up this sector. They must
be interested in the implementation of a triple bottom line
approach and they must support it as well. Indeed, it must be a
fundamental part of their management strategy if sustainable
waste management is to be achieved. Swedish best practice has
shown that efcient waste management can reduce the quantity of
unsorted waste per guest-night to only 50 g. This is much smaller
than current values of waste generated, as mentioned in this paper.
This gives an idea of how much room for improvement there is.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.07.038.
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