Hostelling International USA has become the first hostel company in the world to implement “smart showers” that limits showering time to seven minutes. At a launch event in New York at the HI USA Hostel on 891 Amsterdam Avenue, CEO Russ Hedge introduced the HI USA Million Gallon Challenge. Mr. Hedge then introduced HI USA’s Sustainability Coordinator Zach Hetrick and his NY based colleague Community Affairs Manager Emily Gallagher, to explain the company’s plans to roll out more than 750 showers across its 50 properties, each with colorful LED lights to gently alert guests that time’s up. “If each guest showers for 30 seconds less, we save around one million gallons of water each year,” said Hetrick.
The event also featured a tour of the historic building that is now the HI NYC Hostel. Built circa 1883 it was until shut down in 1974, the Association Residence for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females. After a period of reclamation and restoration, the building took on new life as a hostel on January 20, 1990, when the first hostellers arrived.
The tour concluded with a visit to the hostel’s EcoRich Elite II food waste composter, the first such 24-hour composter in Manhattan. Capable of repurposing 100 pounds per day of the site’s food waste into a nutrient-rich soil amendment, the material will be used the for the hostels landscaping needs and that of the surrounding community with which the hostel intends to share it.
Want to know more about this event, what else is happening in the growing food-waste composting industry, particularly with the hospitality sector, and how EcoRich can help you meet your food waste disposal needs? Contact EcoRich.
