Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives recently finished its first quarter of waste collection for the year, in collaboration with Secure Bag Maldives, as part of its sustainability initiatives. Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives reported that the recent weight-in and collection were indicative of the success of its collaboration, which began back in August last year. The project aims to recover, process, and reuse the discarded material as raw material in the production of new products.
Secure Bag Maldives has been running operations based on the principles of recycling, upcycling, and resale using sustainable lifecycle management solutions.
According to Sharon Garrett, Director of Marketing & Sustainability at Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives, the Secure Bag, as well as the resort’s team, agreed that the majority of the resources had some kind of residual value after their first usage. According to her, the resources that would otherwise be thrown away could be converted into sustainable products by using recycling methods. According to Sharon Garrett, although earning money from waste sounds strange, this concept is common worldwide and represents a change in resource management. She explained that it was encouraging for the resort to witness the concept gaining momentum in the Maldives. As part of the agreement, the resort claimed that it was capable of recycling a wide variety of materials, including metal, compacted paper, batteries, motors, crushed glass, aluminum cans, air conditioning parts, lubricating oils, and cooking oil.
According to Garrett, she and the sustainability officer at the resort, Krisel, felt optimistic about the amount of waste being recycled away from landfills. During the last three months, the resort has recycled iron scrap weighing 3.7 tonnes, motor and compressor components weighing 1.4 tonnes, aluminum cans weighing 544 kilograms, air-conditioner components weighing 565 kilograms, and lubricants and cooking oils totaling 3,200 liters. The resort stated that such an initiative would enable them to cut down their environmental footprint and contribute to the concept of a circular economy where there is reuse and added value.
