The Table Bay brings green consciousness to employees, educates on R&R

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Motivate employees to take action

The training programme forms part of The Table Bay’s concerted and ongoing efforts to inspire green consciousness amongst employees and set an example of good practice for travellers and businesses that are looking to take steps to reduce their impact on the environment. According to, Joanne Selby, general manager at The Table Bay Hotel, the programme aims to teach employees about recycling and the impact of environmental savings in a more accessible way.

“Waste management is not new to the operating agenda of our hotel, and it forms a vital component of our overall environmental management system. However, through this programme and various interventions to be implemented to facilitate recycling and resource efficiencies, we hope to motivate employees to take action with doable and practical behaviours that they can apply in their day to day work,” says Selby.

Bolstering recyclable waste

Much of the waste created in hotels stems from either food and beverage handling, which leads to waste materials such as packaging and food waste, aluminium cans, glass bottles, corks and cooking oils, or from the housekeeping department which creates waste such as cleaning materials and plastic packaging. Measures to deal with these issues have already been initiated in terms of separation of waste, plastic, glass, and cardboard. However, The Table Bay wants to bolster the proportion of waste that is recycled.

The Table Bay has commissioned Postwink Recycling Solutions to assist with training staff as well as install various solutions to make the process of recycling easy to understand and implement. Its innovative recycling bins encourage separation of waste at the source while informative labels, reflecting The Table Bay’s branding, will be strategically placed to guide employees when choosing where to place items for recycling. The goal is simple - to reduce the amount of The Table Bay’s recycling that ends up in the landfill.

Creating a recycling culture

“Recycling is a culture that needs to be inculcated. Effective recycling bins and stations, as well as labelling will keep recycling top of mind amongst employees. It is not that our employees don’t support our recycling and environmental goals, it’s more a case of making recycling more accessible to them and keeping it at the forefront of their minds as they conduct their duties,” says Selby.

She concludes: “In everything we do, we strive to ensure that our business interests are harmonious with those of the environment. Our commitment to environmentally-sound business practices such as recycling is strategic. We want to reduce the need to landfill and extract value from reusable or recyclable materials, and even add value by making compost from organic waste.”