Environmental Management in Hotel Industry

Environmental Management in Hotel Industry

The Central Pollution Control Board has taken -up the project on development of COINDS for Hotel Industry and the findings of the study done in various hotels are as follow:

Hotels have been classified as the industry and as such there is no regulations that govern the hotel industry. The number of Government approved hotels( classified hotels : 1* to 5* deluxe) in India is about 1164 commanding 64573 rooms.

For the purpose of development of guidelines for waste management practices in the hotel industries, all hotels, beach resorts, hill and tourist resort lodges, heritage properties, dhramshalas, guest houses and other kinds of the tourist resorts that provides accomodation to business travellers, pilgrims or tourists have been considered.

Large hotels in some states are regulated by the State Pollution Control Boards/Committees for implementation of Rules laid down under the Water Act. However, there are no specific standards or regulation formulated for this category of the industry.

The hotels use considerable quantity of the water drawing mainly from the deep tube wells or from municipality, in following sections mainly.

• Guests room ( toilets and bathrooms)
• Service areas ( toilets and bathrooms)
• Drinking
• Floor washing
• Kitchen
• Butchery
• Laundry
• Swimming pool
• Plant utilities (AC plant, Boiler, Cooling tower)
• Fire hydrants
• Gardening

The details of water consumption in different sections in hotels and waste generation are as under:

S.No.	DESCRIPTION OF PROCESS	CONSUMPTION(KL/ day) from municipality & deep tube wells)	DISCHARGE (KL /day into municipality sewers and drains)
1.	Drinking Water	20	Nil
2.	Toilets (Guest rooms, public and service area)	300	280
3.	Kitchen	175	150
4.	Laundry	85	80
5.	Air conditioners	20	Nil
6.	Garden	20	Nil
7.	Swimming pool	20	15
8.	Fire Fighting	3	Nil
9.	Boiler	12	3
TOTAL		655	528

Average figures of water consumption and solid waste generation per room basis in large scale hotels are as follows:

S.No.	Details	Figures
1.	Raw Water Consumption KL /day/room	0.5-1.3
2.	Waste Water discharge KL/day/room	0.4-1.1
3.	Solid waste generated Kg/day/room	0.6-1.1
4.	Percentage of water discharged	80-93

Characteristics of the Wastewater generated in large as well as in medium and small scale hotels:

Sl. No.	Parameters	Large Hotels	Medium and Small Hotels
1	pH	7.2	8.1
2	TSS, mg/l	206	224
3	BOD, mg/l	265	108
4	COD, mg/l	350	224
5	Oil & Grease , mg/l	32	21
6	Phosphate, mg/l	0.1	--
7	Residual Chlorine, mg/l	0.2	--

The following observations have been made for improved environment management in Hotels

Wastewater Management

• Wastewater reduction efforts in kitchen, laundry, toilets and wash room.
• Wastewater treatment for kitchen, laundry & toilets and ecologically compatible discharge.
• Recycling treated wastewater for gardening purpose.
• Avoiding use of harmful chemicals for pest control and water treatment
• Rain water harvesting and restricted use of ground water for consumptive purpose.

Air Pollution

• Use of low sulphur fuel oil for combusting purpose in DG Sets and Boilers.
• Use tall stacks (above the nearest building height) and use control devices wherever required.
• Switch to gas fired equipment, wherever possible.
• Optimise combustion efficiency at all firing ranges, maintain between 82% to 92%.
• Maintain burners in efficient condition and ensure smoke free exhaust.
• Maintain negative air pressure inside kitchen and laundry through appropriate measures.
• Kitchen, laundry and toilet exhausts can be filtered before discharge. Activated carbon filters can also remove odours from such exhaust.

Solid Waste Management

• Scrutinise avenues of solid waste reduction, department by department.
• Avoid excessive packaging and use of foam pellets.
• Avoid using polystyrene.
• Use cloth bags in preference to paper towels.
• Avoid using plastic wrapping bags and plastic straws.
• Use cloth or canvas bags for laundry.
  

Saleem Asraf Syed Imdaadullah
Mobile:9899300371
Envo Projects
311/22,Zakir Nagar,
New Delhi-110025 ,India
Email:saleemasraf@gmail.com
blog:www.saleemindia.blogspot.com
Web Site : www.envo.8m.com