Waste Management Tips for Hospitality Businesses

For businesses in the hospitality industry, effective waste management is crucial. From hotels to restaurants to takeaways to catering businesses, it’s an industry that generates high levels of avoidable waste. Hygiene concerns, as well as the importance of convenience and good service are key contributors to the problem – but there are some easy ways to navigate them.

Great Western Recycling is a waste management company providing a range of ad hoc and routine services to businesses all over the UK. Whether you need comprehensive waste management support, regular recycling collections, or one off hazardous waste removal, we can help your business reduce its environmental impact.

In this article, we provide guidance on how businesses in the hospitality sector can improve their waste management.

Importance of Waste Management for Hospitality Businesses

Without proper care, hospitality waste can be incredibly costly, damage the environment, and pose significant hygiene issues too. According to WRAP, hospitality businesses in the UK generate 1.1 million tonnes of food waste – that means 18% of food purchased by the industry is thrown away.

Food waste can have a significant impact on the planet, rotting down in landfill to produce harmful methane gas. Plenty of discarded food is also perfectly edible, making it a missed opportunity for businesses to feed the hungry and support their local community.

And it’s not just food. The hospitality industry also discards 1.3 million tonnes of packaging and 0.66 million tonnes of other non-food waste such as kitchen paper, newspapers, and plastic.

All of these different waste streams can have severe implications for the planet. From releasing greenhouse gases in landfill to the carbon emitted during their manufacturing, each wasted material presents a significant planetary cost.

Why is Waste Management Important for Business in the UK? >

Types of Waste in the Hospitality Industry

There are many different types of waste produced by hospitality businesses. Some of the most common waste streams are:

Food waste
Plastics – e.g., from bathroom toiletries, water bottles etc.
Glass bottles
Bedding and towels deemed unsuitable for guests
Paper and cardboard – e.g., packaging, newspapers etc.
Garden waste
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)

6 Tips for Reducing Waste in the Hospitality Industry

Audit Waste

An important first step is to audit your organisation’s waste production and identify the types of waste you regularly produce. Once you’ve done this, work out the rate of production and the volume of waste produced in a given time period. With this information at your fingertips, you’ll be able to identify areas for improvement, and have a baseline to measure progress against.

See more: Everything You Need to Know About Waste Management Audits

Train Staff

When it comes to implementing business waste management strategies, getting staff on board is key. If staff aren’t motivated enough to, say, properly separate and recycle waste, or they don’t have enough training to do so, your measures are unlikely to be effective and long lasting. Put up posters, educate employees about the environmental impact of waste, and get everyone excited about the opportunities better waste management will offer.

Why not use WRAP’s free Guardians of Grub resources? >

Work with Suppliers to Reduce Waste

Deliveries inevitably produce large quantities of waste, so why not see if your supplier might be willing to work with you to reduce it? You could arrange to return containers from previous orders or provide your supplier with reusable ones. If your supplier isn’t willing to make an effort, it might be worth finding a business whose values more closely align with your own.

Refill and Reuse

A key source of waste in hospitality businesses like hotels is disposable miniatures such as jam pots, condiments, and toiletries. An alternative to these items is to use reusable glass jars which staff refill. When it comes to shampoo, conditioner, soap, and shower gel, refillable containers can also work well. As well as this, try washing things like kitchen cloths rather than using disposable ones, and provide water filters as opposed to plastic bottles.

Unavoidable plastic waste? Read our Beginner’s Guide to Plastic Recycling.

Give Guests Choice

A lot of business owners automatically supply things like toiletries, slippers, plastic bottles, and plastic wrapped dressing gowns without considering whether guests actually want or need them. Why not make some of these items free optional extras that guests can request if required? That way, you can still provide an impeccable service, but you will avoid supplying unnecessary items.

Enlist Professional Waste Management Company

As a business, it’s your duty of care to ensure all unavoidable waste is dealt with in a responsible way, and handed over to a legal waste carrier. Working with industry experts offers numerous benefits, and can make your transition to better waste management even quicker. They’ll be able to tailor their service to your business’ needs, and even help you achieve zero waste to landfill.

How to Choose a Waste Management & Disposal Company >

How to Reduce Food Waste in the Hospitality Industry

According to Which?, the equivalent of 1 in 6 meals are wasted by hospitality and catering businesses. Typically, this results through a combination of overbuying, overproduction, and spoilage. Understanding how your processes are contributing to these phenomena is an important first step when it comes to reducing food waste across the board. Below, we provide more top tips.

Avoid Overbuying

If your supplier has a deal on, it can be tempting to bulk buy stock and store more ingredients than are necessary. However, doing so can lead to high levels of food waste if the food isn’t used, costing you more money overall in the long run.

How to Reduce Business Waste >

Store Food Correctly

WRAP estimates that 21% of restaurant food waste is as a result of spoilage. Make sure fridges and freezers are fully operational at the correct temperatures, and keep high risk foods on lower shelves than low risk ones. Finally, make sure you have a regular routine of ‘use by’ checks in place.

Stock Rotation

In the kitchen of your restaurant, catering business, or hotel, make sure you’re abiding by the First In, First Out or FIFO rule. This rule states that newer ingredients are placed behind older ingredients when stored to ensure staff use up older stock first and prevent it from spoiling and going to waste.

Keep Stock Inventory

A vital part of food waste management is knowing what you have in stock, so you know what needs to be used up. Keep a detailed inventory and make sure ingredients are labelled accurately with best before and use by dates.

Plan Menu Carefully

Large portion sizes are a common cause of food waste in restaurants. Why not review your serving sizes and consider making things like chips or potatoes a side dish guests can opt for, rather than automatically receive? Another great tactic is demand anticipation. Are there items on your menu that consistently create more waste than others because of lower demand? Perhaps it’s time to create a new dish or remove this option from the menu entirely.

Restaurant Waste Management >

Address Leftovers

Of course, not all food waste is under your control, and it’s likely you will have guests who overorder and find they cannot finish their meals. To prepare for this scenario, why not stockpile some eco-friendly containers and offer a ‘doggy bag’ option? You could also make use of leftovers like animal bones and vegetable peelings by creating tasty stocks and gravies to enhance your offering. That’s much better than ending up in landfill!

Donate Excess Food

The food waste hierarchy states that unavoidable food waste should be donated to people who need it. This might include local homeless shelters or organisations like FareShare. Any food still fit for human consumption can be dealt with in this way, including ingredients that have passed their ‘best before’ dates, but are still within their ‘use by’. This is because only the latter is about food safety, whereas the former is more to do with quality and taste.

Benefits of Waste Management for Hospitality Businesses

Whether you’re a hotel, restaurant, catering business, or something else, there are many benefits to reducing your waste and managing it effectively.

Reduced Impact

Better waste management means your organisation will be reducing its impact on the environment. Decreased landfill use equals decreased greenhouse gas emissions, and products made out of recycled materials typically require less energy to manufacture.

Cost Savings

Addressing your waste can lead to considerable cost savings. In fact, WRAP found that when it comes to food waste, every £1 invested in recycling and waste management yields £14 in return. Reduced landfill tax, lower disposal costs, and money saved through replacing waste – what’s not to like?

Commercial Waste Collection Costs & Prices – How Much is Business Waste Collection? >

Better Kitchen Hygiene

Having effective food waste processes in place can reduce the risk of many common hygiene issues. Storing food safely, managing ‘use by’ dates, and disposing of plate scraping in proper waste containers that are regularly emptied is vital for kitchen health and safety.

Boosted Brand Image

Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of how their decisions impact the environment. As a result, businesses who are ahead of the curve when it comes to improving the sustainability of their practices are likely to boost their reputation and gain a competitive advantage. Reducing food waste where possible and recycling unavoidable waste to generate green electricity can therefore greatly enhance your marketing.

Our food waste recycling service >

Supporting Community

Donating surplus food to charitable organisations who redistribute food to the hungry is a great way of supporting your local community. Not only will this make you feel good, but it is likely to result in increased visits from those who only want to support ethical businesses.

Waste Management & Recycling for Hospitality Businesses

If you want to get started on your journey towards better waste management, get in touch with our friendly team. Great Western Recycling have helped numerous hotels, restaurants, and catering businesses boost their sustainability across the board and leverage the benefits of improved waste processes.