We all know now we have a major issue on our planet with single use plastics. We have become so dependent on them that we now seem to be unable to exist without them.
We are producing over 300 million tons of plastic every year, 50% of which is for single-use purposes – More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.
So who is to blame? Who needs to sort this out? Well it’s clear every single one of us needs to step up to the mark and make some very fast changes to how we live.
So what are we doing to make the change? Vassaliki is constantly looking for and implementing ways to reduce waste produced on resort.
This year all our rooms have had recycling bins installed – this allows us to separate and recycle glass, cans, plastic bottles and cardboard/ paper. All this waste is collected by us and taken to the local recycle bins.
Our pool bar and restaurant have been recycling glass, plastic bottles and cardboard/ paper now for several years. We also now have a strict no plastic straw policy and we don’t automatically offer straws with all our drinks. Plus we don’t plastic decorations to our cocktails.
Our biggest plastic waste issue has been the water bottles – We have been working now for a few years to reduce the number of bottles we dispose of each year. The last two years we have been offering guests the opportunity to refill reusable Vassaliki water bottles at one of our cold water stations situated on resort for a small fee. This has proven very popular and has made a huge reduction to our plastic bottle waste. Our drinking water is delivered in 20 litre water barrels and attached to a cooling machine. The barrel when empty is then returned to the water company to be refilled.
Our next stage to get rid of plastic bottles is to install a larger water filter and cooling system at the bar area. This we hope will allow guests to either fill their own reusable water bottles or one of our Vassaliki bottles. We will then serve chilled filtered water in reusable water bottles to the tables at meal times. With all our other drinks being sold in recyclable cans and glass bottles we hope to be free of single use plastic bottles by 2021.
So what other changes do we have in the pipeline? Well unfortunately we are fazing out our complementary shower gel, shampoo and body lotion bottles, but we are looking into replacing them with a refillable shower gel bottle in the shower and we already have hand soap in refillable pump bottles.
We are also stopping supplying washing up sponge and scourers in each room from 2020 but the washable dish cloth, tea towel and oven gloves will remain on offer in your room on arrival.
The other issue to tackle is the bin bags in the bathrooms as we are unable to allow paper down the toilets, so we are now investigating into biodegradable bags.
We are starting to do our bit and are always looking for further ways to reduce our waste. So if you can think of anything else we can look into please let us know we are very keen to improve on reducing our waste.
We get asked all the time how Brexit is going to affect our business in Greece. We have not really looked into it much as it seemed to us like Brexit was never going to happen and the information we were finding was not confirmed, confusing or incorrect most of the time. Now with the election all done, it looks like we may finally, after several failed attempts, leave the EU.
We are well and truly into our 2019 summer season here in Kefalonia, Greece. The island is now in full flow with beach parties and festivals nearly every day of the week.
