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The Rooster is Going Green
Many of you who visited in the last few years received our email contest to help us in our effort to Go Green
This Page will be used for informing you what we have done already and what is in process.
December 2009 update: This year we are making it a goal to achieve 75% organic food sources and by searching out our local farmers market and several of our wonderful Organic Farms we are beginning to find this a lot easier. So buying local not only helps our community but provides our guests with quality food.
We are trying out a new laundry detergent. I have discovered parchment paper that can go in the compost. And my new steam mop is changing my whole idea about mopping.
When we originally decided that a bed and breakfast has a large impact on our environment, and that we could start doing small things to make a difference, we found ourselves finding many things. It has been fun and challenging I have been entitled the obsessive compulsive recycler by my friends (yes i wash out the plastic bottles with soap and water).
The first thing we did was started looking at our waste. And realized there was a lot of things that we could change. We still struggle with a few things but here is the outcome.
In the Kitchen:
Compost all vegetables and fruit scraps.
When we cannot purchase organic fruits and vegetables we found an all natural fruit and vegatable wash to clean them with.
We purchased Green Bags which have really helped us to keep our produce longer.
We only run the dishwasher when full.
We use the old wonderful napkins for cleaning up with and have eliminated a lot of paper towels.
We found two local organic farmers to partner with to purchase in season produce and eggs and pork. We may not always be able to accomplish this 100% but we are making that effort to get there.
We put out recycling bins on the back deck making it easy for us and our help to sort the recycling.
Around the Inn:
We have individual heaters in all the rooms which help us to keep them at a minimum during the winter. We opened up the top doors and let the heat rise to save on energy.
We are replacing existing indoor and outdoor bulbs with flourescents as they burn out.
We put solar lights on the pathways.
This house was built extremely well so our energy costs have been pretty low to begin with.
We are cleaning with all natural enzymes (which help our septic system) and using vinegar and natural cleaning products.
We are doing the laundry with biodegradable nonfragranced laundry detergent and found that by adding vinegar to the rinse we were able to reduce the amount of detergent we use.
For the dryer we found a dryer shaker. This product is great because one bottle will do 1,000 loads that means no more dryer sheets or the boxes they come in. The benefit has been that because the product does not put a wax build up on the towels they have become more absorbant. (we now sell that product)
All damaged towels and linens go into use as cleaning rags, camping towels or to our local shelter.
In the Rooms:
Bar soap has been an issue for a long time. We tried putting out soap doggy bags to encourage guests to take them home but we still kept piling them up in the back room - now if i had a lot of time i would remelt them and make them into Rooster shaped bars right? Wrong i don't have that kind of time and my first attempt with my granddaughter was not that appealing. So we are putting refillable hand soap at the sinks, and refillable shampoo and body wash in the baths.
Coffee packaging still remains an issue but found that trying to grind and refill jars becames very timely and messy.
Turning the refrigerators off between guests is an area we struggle with because we have to remember to go turn them on for you. Otherwise we find the guests then turn the refrigerators on to max to get them to cool off. So we will work on this.
We are offering a 10% discount to three or more night stay, in exchange for a light housekeeping package. This way the room can be stocked for a three or more night stay and reduce the laundry, vacuuming, etc.
Now we are still struggling with the bottled water in the rooms issue. I like being able to supply my guests with bottled water during their stay but hate the plastic waste they are so if you have any good ideas please let us know.
Wow that was a lot was'nt it? Amazing how a few things bloomed into a lot of things and the ideas from the guests have been great too.
We are opened to suggestion and really opened to your help in impacting our pristine environment of this great Olympic Peninsula, thankyou for your input and your help.
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