Waste Management

What is the issue?

Hotels and lodges can produce large quantities of solid waste, from packaging to food scraps to cleaning and maintenance materials, some of which are toxic. In many cases, this waste is collected in badly designed waste dumps, discarded directly into oceans or rivers, or simply dumped in areas out of sight of guests. In addition to visually degrading a destination, improper waste disposal can lead to water and soil pollution through leaching of contaminants from waste piles.

Poorly designed waste dumps can result in fires, odors, flies and ineffective containment of wastes.
Uncontrolled disposal of toxic items such as paint cans and batteries can severely contaminate water, air and soil resources, threatening the environment and human health. Even where waste is disposed of legally, land fills have limited capacity.

What can you do as a guest at Sabalo Lodge?

• • Unpackage items before you pack them for your trip to reduce waste brought to the lodge.
  • Try to bring rechargeable batteries for your trip and low wattage electronics.
  • Limit the amount of pre-packaged snacks for bulk snacks.
  • Re-package items in reusable containers such as Tupperware.
  • Try traveling with biodegradable products when possible.
  • Do not litter.
  • Please comply with the recycling program in place at Sabalo Lodge.
  • Pick up any litter you may come across in or around the lodge and community.
  • Do not store any food in your room, unless you want to share your bed with many insects.

What has Sabalo Lodge done for effective waste management?

Each room is provided with special trash cans for recycling.
Recycled trash is collected and separated then transported to a recycling center.
Hazardous materials are sealed properly and transported to the nearest public waste center.
Only biodegradable bulk package bleach free soaps are used for laundry and dish washing.
Guests are provided biodegradable soap and shampoo in dispensable containers.
We buy fresh and local when we can to reduce packaging and emissions from transportation.
We buy bulk when we can in recyclable containers and store items in reusable containers.
We compost our food scraps for our gardens and feed them to our domestic animals.
By practicing the 3 R’s “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” we continue to refine our program.

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