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Behind-the-Scenes Green: Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park

Locations in this article:  Chicago, IL San Francisco, CA

Green Travel ChicagoAlthough the terms “green” and “eco-friendly” have become commonplace in the travel industry, sometimes the most innovative practices are ones that the guests never see.

The Virtuous Traveler Leslie Garrett reports on a hotel employee who is going the extra green mile to help make a difference.

Francine Kaonohi, director of housekeeping for the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park, seems humbled by the fuss.

Sure, she saves her employer money by asking the on-site seamstress to transform sheets that are no longer “guest-worthy” into pillowcases that are. And once they’ve outlived their usefulness under guests’ heads, they’re transformed again into trash or recycle bin liners, ensuring that plastic bags are unnecessary.

For the hotel industry, these steps might seem radical. But for Kaonohi, they’re simply common sense. And she points out, in Hawaii, where she lived until 11 years ago, they’re also common practice.

Visit our Eco-Travel section for green travel tips, or check out Eco-Travel Chicago for city-specific information.

Francine Kaonohi Behind-the-Scenes Green in Chicago“Hawaiians love Hawaii,” she explains. “But we know we’re in the middle of the ocean.” Which means, of course, that getting materials to the island or shipping trash from the island, is no simple thing.

Though these transactions might be easier in the middle of Chicago, that doesn’t mean it’s time to abandon smart habits.

So when Kaonohi noticed that the sheets the hotel was already donating to shelters could have extended use at the hotel, she saw, as she explains, “a need we could capture without purchasing.”

“There’s sense to recycling,” she says, beyond the cost savings. And the more all of us embrace it, Kaonohi insists, we become more intelligent about it … and start seeing increasing opportunities.

Like, for example, her next project.

She has her eye on the waffle weave robes that Fairmont Gold members enjoy in their rooms. “They’d made great hair dryer bags,” she says.

“Am I cheap?” she demands with a smile, insisting that she hates that word, and concluding that “I’m simply motivated by practical use.”

She’s pleased to be part of a corporate environment that, as she says, encourages radical ideas. “It was radical at first,” she explains, “to not change hotel sheets every day.”

Of course, these days, it’s encouraged in most hotels. Similarly, Fairmont donates used and left behind amenities—shampoo, lotion, even lost-but-not-reclaimed items—to shelters, another formerly “radical” idea that has, blessedly, become commonplace.

Kaonohi is excited about ideas she’s privy to that aim to take green practices a step further, from a digester that turns organic waste into clean water, and a recyclable material that feels like high thread-count sheets.

Kaonohi’s goal? To make eco living a “culture…a way of life.”

Text and photos by Leslie Garrett for PeterGreenberg.com. Leslie Garrett is an award-winning journalist and author of The Virtuous Consumer: Your Essential Shopping Guide for a Better, Kinder, Healthier World. Visit her atwww.virtuousconsumer.com.

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