Hotel aims to avoid throwing away money

THE Malmaison hotel in Aberdeen is helping the environment at the same time as reducing its landfill tax burden by sending food waste to an Aberdeenshire recycling plant.

Maintenance manager Reinaldo de Freitas has been told by collection company One Stop Waste Solutions that the hotel is the first in the Granite City to be operating such a scheme.

Collections in the current three-month trial are being made once a week, though this could increase as the initiative gathers pace.

Roule Wood, Malmaison Aberdeen’s business-development manager, said: “We are optimistic that we will adopt this on a more permanent basis after the trial.”

Food waste is being transported to New Deer business Keenan Recycling, which turns it into compost.

Malmaison Aberdeen is the first in its group to introduce food recycling and aims to be sending at least 50% of its kitchen waste for composting within three months.

This reduces the amount of waste going to landfill and there are no harmful greenhouse gases produced.

The resulting compost enriches soil, cuts down chemical fertiliser use and helps to slow depletion of peat bogs.

Landfill tax – at £48 per tonne and due to rise by £8 every April until 2013 – was introduced to encourage reduction in the amount of waste sent to landfill.

Businesses can save money by finding alternatives such as reducing, re-using, recycling or recovering the waste they produce.