The Textile Services Association (TSA) and UKHospitality (UKH) will work together to reduce the amount of single-use plastic waste created during the servicing of hotel linen.
- The agreement was reached by representatives of the hospitality and laundry industries at their latest roundtable event.
- The roundtable, which took place in Birmingham on 31 January 2023, included representatives from some of the UK’s largest laundry companies and hotel groups, as well as the TSA and UKH.
- They discussed the importance of reducing the reliance on single-use plastics as part of UKH’s push towards removing it completely by 2030, and how each sector needs to work with the other in order to achieve this.
The Context: Currently, single-use plastic wrapping is used by laundries when transporting clean bedroom linen back to hotels.
- This generates about 100 tonnes of plastic a week, which is equivalent to 300 tonnes of carbon throughout its lifecycle.
- As only 9% of plastic waste is currently recycled, removing this from the bedroom linen laundry chain would be a significant contribution towards increasing the sustainability of both laundry and hospitality industries.
The Way Forward: The discussion at the roundtable resulted in the hospitality industry agreeing to support the laundry industry’s work to remove single-use plastic from the processing of bed linen.
- This will require investment from laundries to bring in appropriate cages and washable cage liners that will replace the single-use plastic wrapping, to maintain the high standards of hygiene demanded.
- The process will take time to complete, which is why it is important that this initiative is driven by both industries as a whole, the organisations felt.
What They Said:
Removing single-use plastic from the bed linen supply chain will play a key role in our Net Zero strategy. This meeting marks an important step on our journey to making the industry as sustainable as possible.
— Tony Sophoclides
Strategic Affairs Director
UKHospitality
An agreement like this would never have been reached even three years ago. This shows how much views have changed on the need for companies to take large scale action on environmental matters. Now we are all walking the walk!
— David Stevens
Chief Executive Officer
Textile Services Association
