By David Carey
(Dr. Richard Kelley is traveling. His column will return on December 5.)
Jim Heather; Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann; Terry Telfer, President, Reynolds Recycling, David Carey; Senator Brickwood Galuteria; and Alan Naito
On Monday, November 16, I had the pleasure of accepting on behalf of Outrigger Enterprises Group the inaugural “Green Leader Award” from Reynolds Recycling, recognizing our company as a recycling and sustainability leader in Hawaii’s tourism industry. The presentation was made at a press conference held at Waikiki Beach Walk® and was attended by Terry Telfer, President of Reynolds Recycling, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, Senator Brickwood Galuteria, whose district includes Waikiki, and representatives of many of our Waikiki hotels who participate in the bottle and can recycling program.
Since 2006, Outrigger’s owned and operated hotels in Waikiki have prevented over 48,000 pounds of recyclable material from entering Honolulu’s landfill by recovering more than one million beverage containers from our Waikiki guest rooms.
One of Outrigger’s core corporate values is “Wahi,” the Hawaiian word meaning ‘”place,” which signifies that “we protect, care for and live in harmony with the land, our workplace, its people, and cultures.”
This “Green Leader Award” from Reynolds Recycling is a great example of our company’s and employees’ commitment to living our values, and I’m particularly pleased that it is our employees who have suggested and driven many of our eco-friendly efforts.
Such is the case with our recycling efforts. At the press conference I asked Jim Heather and Alan Naito to join me on stage. Jim, now the General Manager at the Outrigger-managed Courtyard by Marriott property, can be credited with starting our Reynolds Recycling efforts several years ago at the Outrigger Waikiki and Outrigger Reef hotels when he was the General Manager at the Outrigger Waikiki.
A year or so ago Jim passed the baton to Alan Naito, General Manager at the OHANA Waikiki East. Alan instituted the recycling program at his own hotel, which soon carried over to the OHANA Waikiki West, OHANA Waikiki Malia and OHANA Waikiki Beachcomber hotels, as well as to the Outrigger-managed Embassy Suites® – Waikiki Beach Walk and the Outrigger Luana Waikiki.
Thanks to these two gentlemen’s leadership, and with the assistance of our Housekeeping and Maintenance staffs, we’ve been able to make a significant contribution to keeping Hawaii green by simply collecting and recycling the bottles and cans left by our guests in their rooms.
But our sustainability initiatives go far beyond recycling. I am proud to say that we have long practiced energy-saving techniques at many of our properties in an effort to be more eco-friendly and to preserve our island’s natural resources. For example, the installation of low-flow toilets and showers reduces the amount of water – including hot water – that we use every day; and to lower our energy consumption, we have replaced incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Also, a number of our properties have installed the INNCOM Energy Management System, which allows hotels to adjust thermostats so as to minimize unnecessary use of air conditioning when rooms are vacant.
The OHANA Waikiki Beachcomber received an ENERGY STAR designation earlier this year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and the Outrigger Waikiki and Outrigger Reef hotels collect items such as grass beach mats, plastic body boards, air mattresses, inner tubes, and other beach toys left behind by departing guests. Working with local retailer Kini Beach, these items are then transformed into eco-friendly bags and paddle covers.
It was appropriate that the press conference for the Green Leader Award was held at Waikiki Beach Walk, since that project is another great example of recycling and sustainability. During its construction, much of the concrete rubble from the various buildings that were demolished was crushed on site and recycled as fill to plug the holes left behind by the basement cavities of the previous properties – an initiative that not only reduced debris going to the landfill, but also enabled us to avoid hauling the debris away from the site and trucking fill material into the site, thereby reducing traffic on the roads by an estimated 1,800 heavy truckloads and saving a lot of diesel fuel and cutting air pollution as well.
Clearly, the phrase “going green” has taken on big meaning for Outrigger. The Reynolds Recycling Green Leader Award is a shining example of our company’s and employees’ commitment to living our values and being contributing members not only of the island community in which we live, but of the global community.
Mahalo to Jim Heather and Alan Naito for their leadership role in our Reynolds Recycling partnership, and to our housekeepers and maintenance crews for the hard work they put into the program each and every day.
Hawaii’s attractiveness as a visitor destination and the natural beauty its residents enjoy every day rest heavily on keeping our environment pristine. As tourism industry leaders, it is our responsibility not only to maintain, but to improve our Hawaii home for future generations to enjoy. We pledge to continue growing Outrigger’s efforts to help achieve a more sustainable and greener Hawaii.
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Some Impressive Facts and Figures Regarding Outrigger Enterprises Group’s Recycling Efforts
- 14,595 pounds — the amount of aluminum recycled since 2006. This has saved 109,465 kilowatts of electricity, conserved 11,530 gallons of gas, and if the cans were lined up end to end, they could wrap around Kapiolani Park 18 times!
- 36,317 pounds — the amount of plastic recycled since 2006. This has saved over 69 barrels of petroleum, preserved 135 cubic yards of landfill space, and if the containers were lined up end to end, they could go up and down Diamond Head over 54 times!
- Half a million — the number of containers that Outrigger Enterprises Group is projected to recycle in 2009 alone. Compared to 2008, the hotel properties will more than double the number of recyclables they remove from the waste stream in 2009.
