Abstract:
|
This thesis aimed to examine the situation of waste management problems
encountered by small hotels by focusing on investigating the causes of waste
generation and on reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering the waste in order to
minimize the waste to be finally disposed of by means of incineration/landfill, which
is appropriate based on the prioritization of zero waste management. There were three
research questions: (1) what are the factors in the zero waste management of small
hotels? (2) What is the best practice in the zero waste management? and (3) What is
the effectiveness of the zero waste management model of small hotels?
The researcher found that there are eight factors involved with the zero waste
management of small hotels and each of them is related to each other, but their
priorities are different: (1) employee cooperation in waste management, (2) waste
management methods, (3) hotel owners/managers contributing to waste management,
(4) hotel’s regulations contributing to waste management, (5) waste management
expenses, (6) hotel’s locations, (7) customers, and (8) seasons contributing to waste
management. In addition, the researcher found that employee cooperation in waste
management is a factor that well supports the waste management if these employees
are willingly to provide their cooperation, but it will be a factor that obstructs the
waste management if they do not provide their cooperation.
There are four steps of zero waste management. Firstly, “Plan: P” of zero
waste management (PZWM) is to set the waste management policy by hotel owners/managers and includes both planning and implementing the policy. Secondly,
“Do: D” is based on 4Rs starting with introducing environmentally friendly products
in the hotels (reduction of waste). When such products have been completely utilized
at their highest benefits in the hotels, they will become four types of waste: food
waste, recyclable waste, non- recyclable waste, and toxic waste, and then they are
classified by type to re-utilize them again by means of reusing, recovering and
recycling based on its properties. Thirdly, “Check: C” is to define a checking method
in writing and to report the result to the hotel management that will determine
improvement measures. Finally, “Action: A” is to schedule an appropriate meeting
time that can solve the problem of implementing the action plans and the meeting
agenda are recorded and then implemented in the PDCA cycle. All issues concerned
with the effectiveness of the zero waste management model were accepted by actual
users and were appropriate in four views: finance, customers, process, and
development and learning.
The contributions of this study can be separated into as part, The academic
contribution and managerial contributions. The first contribution is concerned with
the factors supporting the waste management, especially employee cooperation in
which they are willing to do so and have a good habit of environmental conservation
that can be applied in their daily life as an expectation of the community. Secondly,
the process of zero waste management of small hotels can be used as an example of
actions. Thirdly, this study serves as a guideline for to true research with regard to
hotel management to in crease environmental friendship in other aspects, such as
wastewater, energy, and noise pollution. In addition, there are managerial
contribution. Firstly, a good waste management of hotels can help reduce expenses
and decrease income. Secondly, the zero waste management of hotels can be applied
with other types of service businesses, such as spa business. Finally, employee
cooperation in waste management can be created as a habit in their daily life.
|
