Count your own
2,000 cans a year: the waste stream under one hotel buffet
A breakfast line, every day, all year, is a pallet of steel cans and residual fuel going to landfill. The arithmetic is short.
Take a modest hotel breakfast: six chafing dishes, one can each, seven days a week. A two-hour can changed once per service is twelve cans a day. Over a year that is more than four thousand steel cans, each with fuel residue, each thrown away. A large can changed once is still over two thousand.
What is in the bin
Steel, unburnt alcohol gel or glycol, and a wick. Fuel residue makes the can awkward to recycle; in practice it goes to general waste. Manufacturers acknowledge the disposal problem in their own environmental messaging.
What replaces it
A cordless cell is used every day for years and recharged from the wall. A water-activated pack is one sealed pouch per service and contains no fuel. Either way, the pallet of cans disappears.
Do the count
Dishes, times cans, times services, times days. Then look at where the bin goes.