TN hotels take measures to limit water usage

At a meeting held here recently, members of the association had discussed over various initiatives to save water when the topic of washing dishes after meals came up. On an average,serving a single meal involves the use of at least 12 serving vessels which need to be washed after every serving as opposed to tiffin items that consume just two to three vessels.

“We are thinking about stopping the meals as water supply is being a huge problem in Chennai city and the water spent for washing the utensils ishigher for meals,” said M Vengada Subbu, President of Tamilnadu hotel association as well as the managing director of Darling Residency, Vellore.

On an average, at least 500 meals are served in most hotels in the city between 12.00 and 3.00 pm. The numbers could vary depending on the size and popularity of the hotels, according to a restaurant owner here. “This means washing thousands of dishes within a short span of time consumes a lot of water,” he said.

A few hotels have also returned to serving meals on banana leaf which could save water in substantial amounts as no plates are involved in the process and the side dishes could be served on leaf. “We have implemented a complete banana leaf system for meals in our Parry’s corner branch and we are looking forward to implement it in all our outlets soon. This would definitely save a lot of water and our customers have also welcomed it,” said Sanjana, managing director of Sangeetha Veg restaurants.

Another initiative is implementation of finger bowls to avoid wastage of water through washing hands. “We are planning to give finger bowls to customers as plenty of water wasted could be saved. Most of the restaurants will implement it soon” said M Vengada Subbu.

However, he added that there are issues about disposal of these used banana leaves. Several hotel owners complain that the Corporation is reluctant to collect the piles of banana leaves as it is difficult for disposal. “We have just now sorted the issue with Corporation as earlier they denied to collect the garbage from us,” added M Vengada Subbu.

Some of these initiatives seem to have worked in favour of the customers. “It feels good to eat our meal in this authentic way; we enjoy it more. This is a great measure to save water,” said M Sivakumar, a regular customer to a city hotel.