After the Adoption of the EU Single-Use Plastic Directive
Starting from July 3rd 2021, restrictions banned from the market single-use plastic products such as: cutlery, straws, stirrers, plates, polystyrene (EPS) cups and containers (largely used in the food industry), oxo-degradable plastic bags.
Such restrictions are included in the EU’s Single-Use Plastic Directive (SUPD), a piece of legislation aiming to reduce plastic pollution and requires all stakeholders operating in the plastic supply chain to be compliant with a series of measures, included product bans, design requirements, separate collection targets, and extended producer responsibility schemes.1
The Impact of EU’s Single-Use Plastic Directive on the Hospitality Business
Any plastic stocks can be sold until exhausted, then producers, cafés, restaurants, and other food businesses will need to switch to other greener solutions, like re-usable crockeries, or switch to items made of bamboo & cellulose or other biodegradable materials with a lower environmental impact.
All those businesses willing to embrace such a radical “green” change will find themselves facing a huge workload at peak times, since dishwashing requires time and manpower, with their related costs.
Why Taking-Up a Dishwasher to the Hospitality Businesses
The Single-Use Plastics Directive of the European Parliament highlights the importance of having valid dishwashing equipment, which becomes fundamental for Hospitality businesses such as bars, pubs, restaurants, and hotels to manage workloads quickly and efficiently -especially at peak times- in order to cope with five fundamental aspects.
1 – Business continuity
The eradication of a huge range of plastic goods from services will force those businesses not able to convert to the new, eco-sustainable materials, to a heavier workload during peak hours, since they will find themselves in washing a higher number of traditional plates and cutlery, thus slowing down activities. A dishwasher becomes then fundamental to ensure an optimal customer service and to reduce the workload of the staff that, in turn, can focus on more productive activities.
2 – Hygiene standards
In a historical period in which hygiene standards have become more and more challenging, traditional, manual, washing of dishes and glasses is no longer enough to ensure the proper removal of bacteria. Instead, the introduction of a dishwasher grants perfectly hygienic results and bacteria elimination, especially those capable of working at a constant 84 °C or higher rinse temperature, thus coping with the most challenging hygiene requirements.
3 – Environmental impact
Unlike what most people might think, automatic dishwashing, compared to the manual one, in addition of granting higher performance allows to considerably reduce environmental impact, since modern dishwashers grant low consumptions in energy and water, as well as products such as detergent and rinse aid. Last but not least, heat emissions are kept low, thus avoiding temperature rises within the working environment.
4 – Manpower costs
In addition to the savings in terms of energy, water, detergent and rinse aid, an efficient dishwasher is able to drastically reduce all costs related to manpower, since the duties traditionally carried out by the staff can be mostly eliminated. Moreover, dishwashers providing cold rinse feature give ready to use glasses immediately after washing, thus guaranteeing efficiency and less stress during daily operations.
5 – Need for small footprint
Modern dishwashers performance is not strictly related to their size, allowing them to be extremely efficient and reliable regardless their dimensions, thus making them perfectly suitable even for the smallest businesses, where elbow room is more challenging.
Conclusion
Having valid dishwashing equipment becomes fundamental for the Hospitality industry to ensure business continuity, a proper service, and meet the increasingly high hygiene standards, thus reducing the overall operational costs and granting low consumptions in energy, water, detergent and rinse aid, reducing the costs for customers.
In addition, from a social responsibility point of view, a dishwasher allows you to keep using traditional cutlery and thus to avoid not only the waste of washing products, but also of plastics, which paves the way for a more sustainable future.
1 SOURCE: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019L0904&from=EN