To ensure appropriate waste management the Company carried out the selective collection of waste products in keeping with existing legislation. There are also projects which allow the Company to minimise the consumption of resources and the generation of waste.

Given the activity in our hotels, the waste they generate is mainly classified as urban waste such as paper, cardboard, glass, vegetable oil, packaging and other unseparated domestic rubbish. There is also another type of waste in lesser quantities which includes printer cartridges, electrical and electronic waste not considered dangerous, and used batteries and storage batteries.

To a far lesser extent, there are also some dangerous waste products mainly generated from cleaning and maintenance services. These products basically consist of plastic and metal packaging of dangerous materials (paint stripper, varnish, paint, cleaning products, aerosols, etc.), contaminated rags and sponges, used hydraulic acids, hazardous batteries and electrical materials.

Annual average amount of waste for a hotel from a sample of 156 hotels:

In percentage per hotel:

In Premium hotels (Gran Meliá, ME and Paradisus) the amount of unseparated waste is considerably greater, while the selected waste such as glass, paper and cardboard, packaging and oil are about the same or a little less. This is explained by both the greater size of these hotels and by their location in destinations where selective collection and recycling are not so common.

Tryp hotels produce the smallest amounts of waste per hotel due to the fact that they are smaller hotels offering a reduced level of food and beverage services, one of the most important sources of hotel waste products.

Waste management in corporate officess

In corporate offices waste management focuses on the waste generated in greatest quantities, typical of office activity. The waste generated is fundamentally paper and cardboard, but there is also some packaging, electrical and electronic waste, fluorescent tubes, batteries, printer cartridges, cleaning product packaging, etc.

In 2008 the total amount of paper and cardboard collected from corporate head office in Palma de Mallorca and sent for recycling was 53,790 Kg, an increase of 98% over the previous year.

The reason for the increase is the implementation at the end of 2007 of a document collection and destruction system throughout the offices as well as a restructuring of staff work locations, both of which led to an important increase in this type of waste.