The hotel project that transforms Benidorm's all-inclusive bracelets into new restrooms
In the midst of high season, with the month of August just beginning, dozens, if not hundreds, of guest wristbands are discarded throughout the day in Benidorm's hotels. The same goes for room cards, made of plastic, and many other commonly used products in a hotel establishment that become waste and are now being given a new lease on life through an innovative project.
Mattresses, for example, are changed every two or three years, carpets get dirty and lost, bedspreads age... And all this waste has been given a new lease of life by an R&D project carried out by the Valencian Community's technological institutes INESCOP, AIJU, and AITEX, in collaboration with the hotel association Hosbec. The HOR-Eco project, funded by IVACE+i, has sought to create new valuable products through innovative pretreatment, recycling, and prototyping technologies. It has thus transformed, for example, cork stoppers into reusable coasters or recycled customer wristbands into "brightly colored" washbasins.
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It has done so in up to six Valencian hotels, the Albir Garden Resort (Alfàs del Pi), the Gran Hotel Solymar by Estimar Hoteles (Calp), the Hotel Poseidón (Benidorm), the SH Villa Gadea (Altea), the Hotel Abril (San Juan de Alicante) and the Hotel Meliá Villaitana (Benidorm), which offered to participate in a pilot project that, for example in the latter, has even recycled the tires of the buggies used on its golf courses to create sandal soles.
Hosbec's executive director, Mayte García Córcoles, explains that the hotel industry "has been working on waste recycling for some time," but highlights the project's potential for generating a "new dynamic" in the value chain. "These are efficient transformation proposals," she warns, opening up a new, complex process in the industry, as it invites the creation of new business alliances to establish production standards. "It's a scalable project; now we need to select the processes and materials that could be produced industrially," reflects the Hosbec manager, who would like to be able to say soon that "all Hosbec hotels are participating in the initiative."
The project emerged in March 2024, when the technological institutes contacted the hotel industry associationThe project, and the resulting products, were presented this week at INVATTUR in Benidorm, with the aim of seeking continuity. Hotels are interested in continuing to recycle their waste, and there are opportunities to establish contact with production companies in the province of Alicante.
Presentation of products made from hotel waste, as part of the 'HOR-Eco' project.
HOSBECTheir old bedspreads, golf balls, and discarded sheets have been turned into trays, cell phone stands, and even textile labels, acoustic panels, and stuffed animal T-shirts, which are given to guests, who also want to raise awareness of the importance of the recycling chain. "This is a very beautiful process, but also a very complex—and costly—one that society should also be aware of," adds García Córcoles. That's why participating hotels have created informational corners within their facilities with displays of the materials so guests can learn about what is done with the materials used in mattresses, sheets, plastics, sneakers, tennis, and golf balls.
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