tired of giving away bottled water - not green - what to do?

[Karen]

One of my goals for the year to to be more environmentally friendly and eliminate the amenity of bottled water. If any of you have done that, what alternative do you offer, if any? Do you have coolers? Is there plumbing involved?

 

[muirford]

We have a large bottled water dispenser with 3 gallon jugs in the library, and a countertop ice machine (no need for plumbing - it continuously recycles water from a reservoir). Both were relatively inexpensive investments and really cut down on our recyclables. We provide glass water carafes and small ice buckets in the guest rooms.

 

[Karen]

Jeanne, the three-gallon jugs - do you refill them? Does the appliance filter? (Our town water isn't very good.) What's the brand name? Thanks for the help-Karen

 

[greyswan]

We offer glass carafes of water in a small frig outside of the guest rooms.. each carafe is marked for a room. glasses on a tray in the guest rooms. We found carafes with lids and so far this is working quite well. Our water is double filtered.. one on the main line and another on the frig.

 

[muirford]

Jeanne, the three-gallon jugs - do you refill them? Does the appliance filter? (Our town water isn't very good.) What's the brand name? Thanks for the help-Karen.

Jeanne, the three-gallon jugs - do you refill them? Does the appliance filter? (Our town water isn't very good.) What's the brand name? Thanks for the help-Karen

We use Shenandoah Springs water, and they bring the new jugs. It's spring water. They also provide a dispenser, although I upgraded to a nicer one for a few bucks. They pick up empties and deliver filled once a month, and it probably averages $30 to $35 a month for the service (6 rooms/50% occupancy). They only charge for what we use. You can get three or five gallon jugs - the threes are easier to handle.
You can also get the dispensers online or at Lowe's/Home Depot. They also sell the filled jugs, as does Target and some of the grocery stores.

 

[Alibi Ike]

We have glasses & and a fridge with ice. Everyone has a faucet in their bathroom. If your water is undrinkable, you could put in a filter on a sink guests have access to OR, put out pitchers of water that have built in filters.

 

[muirford]

We have glasses & and a fridge with ice. Everyone has a faucet in their bathroom. If your water is undrinkable, you could put in a filter on a sink guests have access to OR, put out pitchers of water that have built in filters..

If your water is undrinkable, you could put in a filter on a sink guests have access to OR, put out pitchers of water that have built in filters.

Yes. Our city water is fine but we keep a Britta pitcher in the fridge to fill guests' glasses at breakfast. A local innmate keeps a Britta pitcher in every guest room (3) for guests to use. That's a low cost option - but I didn't want to deal with keeping the pitchers filled and clean for each guest. The glass carafes we use go in the dishwasher.

 

[Samster]

I think that as long as you have an option for drinkable, cool water available to the guests, they'll be happy.
For me, there is nothing worse than wanting a cold glass of water and not being able to find it or having to bother an innkeeper for some ice, especially on a hot summer day or after coming back from a walk around town or hike on a country road.
We are in a HOT climate and it can get miserable here. The cold water in our tap may not be that cold in the warm weather months. Our guests frequently were out and about for major events nearby and grabbing a cold bottle of water to take with them was a big perk. We encouraged recycling of the empties but I'm not their mother. I tried to figure out how I could work it with "green" refillable water bottles or something like that and it was just not a good trade-off for me in my time and the expense. I was only one person...
We all have to do what works best for us!

 

[white pine]

We have glasses & and a fridge with ice. Everyone has a faucet in their bathroom. If your water is undrinkable, you could put in a filter on a sink guests have access to OR, put out pitchers of water that have built in filters..

Our water has a lot of sulpher. We have a whole house filter which does a great job. Tastes like spring water.

 

[Joey Camb]

they sent me a pic .

 

[Copperhead]

We have a cooler and have a refillable 2 gallon jug which has a filter system on the end. We have insulated carafes in each room so they can fill with the cold water as desired.
On this subject, Dr. Oz has done several segments on Water - Safety of tap water, bottled vs filtered, etc... I watched the one last week (2/15) www.drozfans.com/dr-ozs-advice/dr-oz-bottled-water-vs-filtered-water-pur-clear20-culligan/
If you are buy bottled water that is NOT stated as Spring Water - you might as well be filtering your own tap water and saving your $... Just make sure your filter removes the substances that your water contains. In other words have your water tested and then buy accordingly.