To help a budget hotel chain strengthen its green brand and reduce its environmental impact, we designed a holistic solution for the separation of hazardous waste for its properties -- including the creative treatment.

Context Most of the budget hotel chain properties sprawled across Indonesia pay lip service to their environmental footprint, including the waste they generate. So we approached Tauzia Group about one of their hotel chains, POP! Hotels, and proposed to deal with the problem.

POP! Hotels brands itself as an eco-friendly budget hotel chain for smart travelers, with some design features that reduce energy use while allowing it to reduce operational costs. However, none of these were really visible to the guests, nor did they address key environmental impacts, putting the brand's reputation at risk in the long term.

Approach We sat down with the management and proposed some solutions that could put our strengths to work -- communications and environmental know-how. Our immediate priority: managing hazardous materials, which in Indonesia are typically disposed of with other waste types and end up in landfills, while raising hotel staff's awareness of the issue. And to give hotel guests the opportunity to participate in efforts, we created a cool monster-shaped bin for used batteries, which was placed in hotel lobbies.

Impact The bins in the lobbies have slowly begun filling with used batteries that would otherwise have ended up in landfills or burnt.

We didn't stop with hazardous waste. At a POP!Hotel in Bali, we worked with a local waste firm, EcoBali, to devise a simple way for food leftovers from the cafeteria to be recovered and composted. Durign the trial period, we composted on site more than 1 tonne of food remains, which were then used for the hotel gardens. To get the hotel team onboard, we designed educational material to guide them in the delicate art of compost management.

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