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Creating a waste minimisation plan for Menorca
Client profile
Tourism is Menorca's main engine of economic growth, with tourism-related industries making up more than 40 percent of regional GDP.
The island receives 1.4 million visitors a year, placing a huge pressure on the island’s resource management.
The challenge: drowning in waste
With all those tourists comes a lot of waste!
As an island, they face unique problems when it comes to managing this waste. Their one landfill site is reaching capacity and when it does, they will have to send waste to the neighbouring island of Mallorca, incurring significantly higher waste management costs. It was therefore imperative that they found a way to increase recycling rates associated with tourism and reduce the amount of waste that the hostelry sector generated.
Menorca is also subject to European targets to increase the proportion of waste that they recycle. As of 2016, they were recycling only 20% of all waste and they needed to increase this to 50% by 2020.
The solution: strategic roadmap for waste reduction
Green Steps helped Menorca to improve their waste & recycling service for hostelry establishments by providing the following services:
Detailed study of the existing barriers to recycling
Green Steps conducted a study of the hotels on the island, designing a questionnaire to understand the barriers that prevented establishments from recycling more of their waste.
Waste management practices workshop
Lindsey ran a training day for managers from the hostelry sector, focused on the specific challenges that surfaced in the questionnaire. The workshop provided attendees with practical action points that they could implement within their own establishments to improve their waste management systems and offer their guests a greener stay.
Executive report and strategy roadmap
Analysing the survey data, Lindsey created a detailed report to enable Menorca’s Department of Waste & Energy to understand the factors that contributed to low engagement and recycling rates.
Good Practice Guide for Tourism Establishments
Finally, Lindsey created a good practice guide to waste management for the hostelry sector on the island. The guide provides easy to understand instructions and information to break through the knowledge and attitude barriers that can impede recycling.
The results: raised awareness
and engagement
The original study generated an in-depth understanding of what was preventing hostelry establishments from recycling as much as they could. These results informed the direction of our consultation.
The workshop and good practice guide raised awareness within the hostelry sector and provided establishments with the knowledge to be able to implement better management practices within their own operations.
"The report is an incredibly useful document to help us plan our future lines of work. Thank you!"
Catalina Pascual Mercadel, Dep. of Waste and Energy, Menorca