During a recent stay at the Emory Conference Center (on the campus of my alma mater), I saw an interesting sign talking about the lack of telephone books in the rooms. While I can’t recall having one in my hotel room previously, the signage regarding the amount of resources saved was astonishing. Here are the associated facts from the placard:
- By not placing telephone books in our guestrooms, our property saves 1766 lbs and 875,250 pages from being printed annually. That equals:
- 15 to 27 trees – depending on how much is new paper and how much is recycled paper
- 3587 kwh (a 3 bedroom house in Colorado uses 600-1500 kwh per month, which equates to a net savings of approximately 3-6 months of electricity).
- 6125 gallons of water. That’s about 14 gallons of water per book
- not to mention the huge carbon footprint the annual delivery of new books and the removal of the outdated ones leaves behind – plus all the gallons of gasoline burned, tire wear, oil changes, etc
For more information on steps the Conference Center has taken to reduce their resource use, visit their website.
Image source: Metropolitan Museum of Art