Comparison of environmental technological practices on pollution abatement of hotels in Kandy, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The environmental pollution caused by the hotel industry significantly impacts humans and nature. Environmental technology aims to protect the environment through offering ways to lower the pollution in a sustainable manner and provide new ways to avoid depletion of natural resources. This study aims to compare how hotels in Kandy district abate the environmental pollution with and without environmental technologies. Both primary and secondary data were used to fulfill the objectives of this study. Primary data were mainly collected through key informants discussions with chief engineers of hotels and questionnaire-based survey conducted on employees of hotels. Secondary data were collected from Municipal Council in Kandy, books and internet related to the hotel industry. The study found that the use of environmental technology reduces the risk of harm to the environment and society. Sewage Treatment Plant (STP), Solid Waste Treatment, Solar Energy Production and Biogas Production can be taken as the methods that hotel industry uses. They remove the contaminants through STP system before disposing waste water. The purified water is being used on hotel gardens. By using solar energy, they generate the energy needed for their hotels. Kitchen waste and sewage use to produce biogas for lighting purposes and generating heat. These systems have huge advantages such as attraction of tourists to revisit destinations, Eco-friendly certifications, increased stand of their hotels, cost reduction for waste disposal etc. However, hotels without environmental technological practices do not have the advantages mentioned above. The majority of hotels in Kandy use traditional methods to deliver waste to the urban council instead of using environmental technologies. This incur additional costs daily. This is mainly because of the lack of awareness about environmental technological practices, reluctance to get away from the traditionalism and there is no need to use such a methodology to protect environment. Therefore, the study recommended that technologies are a great value in preventing pollution