Some 2,000 pounds of food waste each month will no longer be sent to local land fills, thanks to a New Year's resolution to 'Go Greener' by Hilton Garden Inn Richmond Downtown in the restored Miller & Rhoads building.

"While we are proud to be a participant in the Virginia Green program, we wanted to expand our efforts by adding composting in 2011," said John Cario, general manager of the Hilton Garden Inn Richmond Downtown. Virginia Green, the state's program to encourage green practices in tourism, has nearly 1000 participants, including more than 400 lodging facilities.

"To be the very first hotel in the region to compost food wastes is an exciting step forward," said Tom Griffin of RVA Green Management Services, the hotel's partner in developing the compost program. "This is a clear indication of how committed the management and staff of the Hilton Garden Inn are to its new ‘Green Program' and its goals to reduce waste," Griffin added.

Cario explained that his hotel established a composting program in January that led to a weeklong audit of the hotel's waste generation and recycling efforts. The audit included weighing all materials that were being disposed and conducting a pilot collection of all food prep wastes. The hotel even went to the effort of a one-day assessment of every single item in every bag of trash, said Cario.

The audit determined that approximately 20-25% of the total wastes generated by the hotel were food wastes.  At that point, the Hilton Garden Inn committed to composting all food prep wastes. 

The waste audit further determined that the hotel was recycling only about 12% of its waste materials. Once all of the new recycling and compost efforts are in place, Cario said the hotel expects to divert more than 60% of all wastes from operations.

"The waste audit was an invaluable step for us in our greening effort, and we are incredibly proud to be the first hotel in the region to begin composting our food wastes," said Cario

New recycling bins and signage are now being placed throughout the hotel and its meeting spaces. In addition, the hotel is now working with its staff and vendors to reduce the amount of wastes generated during daily operations.

The Hilton Garden Inn partnered with RVA Green Management Services to help develop its Green Program and to conduct the waste stream audit and composting pilot. The compost is picked up by NOPE (Natural Organics Process Enterprises).