According to a recent National Geographic research a whopping 91% of plastic isn’t recycled. Yes, you read it correctly: ninety-one percent. Let’s repeat again: 91% of plastic is not recycled. Some 12% gets incinerated (sure, very healthy for the air we breath), and some 79% is in a landfill or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter. Guess what? At some point, much of it ends up in the oceans, the final sink.
The whole Watamu community is already very keen on protecting the environment, and our ocean in particular. Initiatives like the Local Ocean Conservation or the Eco-World, who also run a recycling centre in Watamu, are vital to protect and preserve our ocean, beaches and nature as a whole. And they both also organize perfect regular beach cleanup, together with other local associations in Watamu and across the coast of Kenya.
But .. when your sink is clogged and overflowing and pouring soapy and dirty water all over your floor, you first run to stop the flooding, i.e. to set the tap off, and then you (obviously) clean up the mess, right? So, stopping the pollution of the oceans is the first right step, even before cleaning them up!
In 2016 we got rid of plastic in the courtesy kits our guests find in their rooms (we still have to find a solution for one of the small items, though), and more recently we banned single-use plastic straws. Plastic dishes and plastic cutlery never had a place at Lonno Lodge. And today we’re ready for our tiny tiny biggest step of all: we’re banning plastic bottles from our premises.
No more plastic bottles, period.
Our guests will be able to enjoy water out of our dispensers, water that we produce with a state-of-the-artdesalinator, or to buy water and drinks bottled in regular glass bottles. No more plastic bottles. We know that it won’t be that easy to find a proper replacement for all the plastic-bottled stuff we’re so used to, but we’re determined to succeed.
Will this decision change the world? Maybe. More probably .. not :-). But it’s a sign, a commitment, a path to a better world. Being aware that this tiny decision by itself is not enough, we challenge Kenya Government to start the legislative process to ban all the single-use plastic from the country.
And we challenge also our collegues in the hospitality business and all the establishments across Kenya: let’s take the first step together to ban single-use plastic from our premises, and to lobby together to push for the abolition of single-use plastic from our country.
Pole pole, nothing happens overnight, there are several obstacles to get rid of, but a clear target has to be defined, so that everybody knows where this country is heading in preserving our natural wonders and our stunning ocean.
Because, even if we tend to forget it, we all come from there.
