Ashotel reports this Wednesday that a total of 90,211 kilos of biowaste kitchen preparation and pruning hoteliers have been collected for six weeks in six hotel establishments in the south of Tenerife and have moved to a Organic farm in Guía de Isora where up to 14,000 kilos of A+ compost (high quality) will be produced to nourish the soils of farms of local agricultural producers, who mainly grow fruits and vegetables that will be supplied to the hotel sector.
These data correspond to project ‘Circular Tourist Communities’promoted by Ashotel and Asaga Canarias, integrated into Ashotel’s Tourism Digitalization and Sustainability Strategy 2030, which seeks to minimize food waste and maximize selective collection at origin of these participating hotels, something that values a more sustainable tourism.
The project is an example of public-private collaboration, in which six hotels associated with Ashotel, the Cabildo de Tenerife, the Adeje City Council, Serviagroc, Transportes Noda and the Chair of Tourism Ashotel-CajaCanarias-ULdetails the employer in a note.
Adeje is the municipality where the six hotel establishments of this first pilot phase of CTC are located and is part of the ‘Covenant of Mayors’, a European movement that pursues the commitment of municipalities from all over Europe to reduce greenhouse gases in 40% by 2030 and the adoption of a common approach to climate change mitigation.
To find out the details of the project, as well as the place where this bio-waste is received and transformed, this Wednesday a visit was made to the Serviagroc agro-ecological farm, in Playa San Juan, which was attended by fifty professionals from the agricultural, hotel, logistics and public, as well as institutional managers of the areas related to this pilot project.
first data
The first data produced by this pilot project, in which the Associated hotels Bahía Príncipe Sunlinght Costa Adeje, Bahía del Duque, GF Gran Costa Adeje, RIU Palace Tenerife, Iberostar Bouganville Beach and HOVIMA Costa Adejewhich total almost 5,000 accommodation places, will allow these 90 tons of bio-waste and pruning to be converted into 14 tons of compost in a few weeks, which could provide organic matter to up to 2,000 banana plants, 20,000 square meters of potato crops or 14,000 fruit and vegetable plantations , as stated by Juan Pablo González, manager of Ashotel.
Specifically, what is being pursued is to take advantage of all the rich organic matter that is produced in hotels, stop burying it in landfills and regenerate soils and farms for better agricultural production and local supply, which ultimately means generating a circular economy. .
For the collection of this bio-waste, 3,228 compostable bags have been used and containers of different sizes have been acquired that allow a selection at source.
In addition, specific training has previously been carried out for members of the staff of the Kitchen and Restaurant areas of the participating hotels, which will allow them to carry out the correct separation of organic waste – remains of fruit, vegetables, vegetable peelings egg and coffee grounds.
This separation has been successful, since in the measured period only 3.8% of improper material has been received.
Interventions
At the beginning of the visit, the president of Ashotel, Jorge Marichal, highlighted that this transformative project unites two very powerful sectors: tourism and agriculture.
“Thanks to this public-private collaboration, what used to be waste now becomes a contribution to the ecological production of zero kilometer fruits and vegetables, which can later be purchased by our hotels, thus generating a circular economy,” said Marichal, and added that with projects like this one also contributes to policies of sustainability and self-supply of local products. “We sell identity to our visitors and our products are identity,” she added.
For his part, Leo Álvarez de Buergo, member of the Asaga Board of Directors, insisted on the idea that “cooperation between the agricultural sector and the hotel sector is necessary and viable to generate a circular economy and a more sustainable agriculture”, and he trusted that the good results “allow the expansion of the production of healthier and higher quality food, in addition to promoting the consumption of local products in tourism.”
Catalina Alemany, head of Corporate Social Responsibility at RIU Hotels, on behalf of the hotels participating in this pilot project, pointed out three key ideas.
The first is that “This territory is the pioneer in launching a food circularity project and that is very important”; the second, that these types of projects are successful if companies and institutions come together among which there is no competition and contribute “to doing good things for the sector and the community”.
Finally, he stated that “it is necessary to talk about the transformation that the tourism sector needs, it is not easy, but if there is a will, it can be done”.
For his part, Manuel Luis Méndez, Councilor for Ecological Transition of Adeje, pointed out that his municipality, where the six hotels of this first pilot phase are located, “has been committed to excellent quality tourism for some time now, and this is adds sustainability and sensitivity for our territory”.
“That is what this project is giving us, a magnificent example of circular economy, which is linked to our philosophy of commitment to excellence in tourism,” he said.
The mayor of Guía de Isora, Josefa Mesa, was also very interested in this circular economy model, which brings the agricultural and tourism sectors into direct and close relationship.
Mesa highlighted the “courage” of the farmers for believing in a change of model that allows them to take an innovative leap “so linked to the new tourist, who is increasingly demanding.” “This union of both sectors is, without a doubt, part of the future,” added the mayor of a municipality in which agriculture is the predominant sector and in which a luxury tourism sector is also developing.
The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the canarian government, Alicia Vanoostendeexplained that “these meetings between professionals from the primary and tourism sectors represent a very important opportunity to establish a direct dialogue between those who are at the forefront of agricultural production in the Canary Islands and hotel and restaurant managers, creating synergies between both sectors to promote the circular economy”.
Vanoostende advocated that all the parties involved bet on local products, “which have a differentiated quality as part of the tourist experience of the archipelago”.
More local products
Those attending the visit later got to know the farm’s facilities, as well as the process of transforming biowaste into organic compostfrom the hand of Jacobo Rodríguez, administrator of this agroecological company.
The gastronomic adviser Juan Carlos Clemente prepared a tasting of small dishes prepared with products from the farm, in line with the proposal of GMR and Ashotel to bring local products closer to tourism companies, in which the CEO of the public promotion company to the local product, Pablo Zurita, highlighted the importance of the connection between hotel establishments and producers of the primary sector.
