Turning Trash into TREASURE

As travellers’ concerns for the environment grow, sustainability initiatives in hotels and resorts are becoming ever more comprehensive and it’s no longer enough for properties to make small – although admittedly worthy –gestures like switching to bamboo straws or phasing out single-use plastic bottles. Booking.com’s recent Sustainable Travel Report 2022 indicated that 81 percent of global travellers said sustainable travel is important to them, with 50 percent saying that recent news about climate change had encouraged them to make more sustainable travel choices. The report also found that 57 percent of travellers would feel better staying in a resort if they knew it had a sustainable certification.

One resort that has embraced sustainability throughout every facet of its operation is The Datai Langkawi, which has earned both the bi-annual ASEAN Green Hotel Standard Certification in 2020 and 2022, and the coveted EarthCheck ECO (Terrestrial) Certificate in 2019 and 2021, which provides a transparent and scientific assessment of environmental and social sustainability endeavours and opportunities comparative to industry best practice.

Situated in the heart of an ancient rainforest where Dusky langurs and Sunda colugos are common sights, a planetfriendly focus pervades throughout the 121-room resort, from the bamboo combs and toothbrushes in rooms to the local, sustainably sourced catches that are served in its five restaurants, where dishes are enlivened by organic herbs including chili, turmeric and ginger grown in the property’s expansive permaculture garden.

The Datai Langkawi’s Pure for the Future initiative, part of its all-encompassing The Datai Pledge sustainability, conservation, and community vision, seeks to incorporate the seven Rs of sustainability – reduce, recover, recycle, repurpose, replace, return and rethink – into daily life at the Langkawi hideaway. The hotel reduces resort waste that would either end up in a landfill or the sea, for example, by making it recyclable, upcyclable or returning it back into nature in organic form up to 93 percent of the resort’s waste has been processed on-site on a regular basis, and zero-waste-to-the-landfill has been reached for the first time in December 2021, and then for 152 days overall in the year of 2022.

In addition to recycling and upcycling initiatives, Pure for the Future champions local sustainable micro-enterprises and natural produce and educates guests on sustainable food production with enlightening tours around the permaculture garden. Regular beach clean-ups keep Datai Bay – voted one of the top 10 beaches in the world by National Geographic – in pristine shape.

If you’re green fingered, then prepare to be impressed by the resort’s permaculture garden, a zero-waste organic food production system that produces fruit, vegetables, herbs and even honey from the resort’s beehives and is fed by compost from The Datai Langkawi’s Sorting Centre. Want to get hands-on? Then sign up for the complimentary garden tour, which might just encourage you to see what you can grow once you’re back at home. You can even don protective headgear and become a beekeeper for the day and learn how to harvest tangy Trigona Itama honey directly from the hives of the resort’s stingless bees – the experience finishes with a honey tasting and the chance to take the fruits of your labour home with you.

Serving the resort’s five restaurants, The Datai Langkawi’s on-site aquaponic farm utilises soilless culture to yield organic produce, including mint, water spinach and choy sum, with freshwater fish like tilapia and catfish providing nutrient-rich aquaculture water to feed the plants.

Fancy getting creative? Then you’ll love The Lab, which hosts regular workshop activities including soap-making using propolis from the bee farm, and candle-making workshops, with used candles and soap from guest rooms melted down and fashioned into new creations by guests. Crushed glass, plastics and outdoor slippers are also upcycled at The Lab and turned into concrete slabs or, in the case of slippers, distributed to partner NGOs for recycling, upcycling, and reuse.

While you’re sure to have fun perfecting your soap or candle design with family or friends, the best takeaway from this fun session is knowing you have done your bit to reduce waste by breathing life into single-use materials we often perceive as no longer fit for purpose. thedatai.com – HELEN

DALLEY