I 70 looks a lot brighter today.  That’s because the Antlers Staff cleaned it up for the 22nd year in a row.  It’s gotten to where we feel that our 2 mile stretch of highway atop Vail Pass is an extension of the Antlers property, or maybe even like a very lazy employee that can’t clean up after himself.  Either way, we know when this extra piece needs to get polished.

There were 18 of us this year and we even had a few guests help out (thank you Katie, Bob, Linda and Tim for joining us).  These are some smart people.  They saw the ad for the Highway Special and took advantage of the “Stay one Night and Get one Night Free with a catered Lunch afterwords and you get to keep any Valuables you may find if you help Us clean up on Highway Special Day”.

Together, we managed to leave 40+ orange bags of trash along our 2 mile stretch of highway.  That may seem like a lot (and it is), but those of us that have been doing this for awhile observed that it wasn’t as much as last year.  This means one of two things;  1. Either there is less traffic on I70…or… 2. People are actually conscience of the fact that throwing garbage out your windows at 65mph is really not a cool thing to do anymore.  I don’t think it’s number one, so I choose number two.  (Just an aside to throwing things away in the wrong place; Darwin, one of our houseman extraordinaires, who joined us on our “walk”, didn’t mind at all that someone; 1. consciously or 2. unconsciously, threw away a $100 bill.  I don’t think it was number one, so I’m going with number two).

Lots of sunshine, a great lunch, a bunch of laughs, and a good feeling about getting all that junk out of the gutter.  It was a great day and thanks to everyone that helped out including our buddies from CDOT that follow up and the other buddies we work with that stayed behind to run the “ranch”.

I Guess a Little Green,

I need to pick up this milk carton and I can’t get this stupid bag to open.

Greg

I woke up this morning and as 300,000,000 other Americans or so do, I brushed my teeth.  Big difference though on this particular morning; I turned the water off while I moved the Johnson & Johnson, soft bristle, blue handled Flintstone toothbrush from side to side.  For 30 or 40 seconds I didn’t waste water.

I’m not usually a breakfast person, but on this day I felt like eggs and maybe a slice of watermelon.  I look into the bowels of my refrigerator and no eggs or watermelon or anything else that wasn’t in a beer can.  I need to go to my local grocer and restock.  I gather my car keys and some currency.  I start the car and have no gas.  Leaning against the wall in front of the car is my bike.  “Why not”, I say to myself.  I peddle to the City Market, purchase what fits it my back pack and proceed home for what is now a well deserved breakfast.  Didn’t have to buy gas, drive the car, use those plastic grocery bags and I got some excersise.   

When I’m at work here at the Antlers, I move around the building quite a bit.  I also wait alot for an elevator.  Today I decide to take the steps rather than stare at the floor looking stupid while I waste precious minutes of my life wondering if the cable car will ever come to my floor.  “Walk the steps” I tell myself.  “I’ll get there faster, help preserve my girlish figure and I can save the Antlers a dime”.  Those elevators use a lot of energy.

I get home from work and want to eat again.  The few dishes I have are dirty.  I wash them by hand.  Everything tastes better on the BBQ grill.  No reason to use 4 stove tops and an oven.  I need music when I eat (blues for BBQ, Sinatra for Italian sausage, etc), but the light bulb burned out over the stereo, so I replace it with a flourescent. I check my e-mails before I go to bed and then turn my computer off.  Now it’s time to brush my teeth again.

Nothing is really happening to me.  It just all seems to make sense.

The landscape of this part of the country is absolutely unique and beautiful. I don’t mean to fashion a scenario that paints Northeast Ohio as a filthy wasteland where trash is pilled along the street curbs, the dumpsters are oozing goo over their edges and the rivers are still burning. I only know the people I know, and they just don’t bother with recycling. A friend of mine hosted a BBQ and I asked him the simple, commonly asked question “Where’s your recycle can?” I was almost made fun of with such an odd inquiry. “Hey guys, the Colorado kid wants to know where to put his beer bottle.” Most restaurants I was treated to had the same type practice. Everything in the dumpster out back.

This is not to say Waste Management doesn’t offer the service of single stream recycling, it’s just that nobody I know uses the service.

The point of my observation while visiting is the difference in lifestyles. What is totally accepted behavior here has barely caught on there. We all have a long way to go. It’s just that some have a further road than others. Anyone out there see the same thing when they travel, or am I totally off base here?

Greg

May 16, 2010 – Vail, CO – The Antlers at Vail, a condominium hotel and conference center, has named Greg Ziccardi to the newly-created position of Sustainability Coordinator. Ziccardi is responsible for researching, maintaining and improving the resource conservation, energy efficiency, recycling and sustainability practices at the Antlers at Vail hotel.

“This is new era in the Antlers’ longstanding commitment to sustainability,” says General Manager Rob LeVine. “I’m confident that Greg will do a great job. He’s excited and passionate about the growth opportunity – both for himself and the Antlers.” Ziccardi has been with the hotel since 2000, and also lives on site as a property manager. 

The Antlers is a 90-room condominium hotel with 2600 square feet of meeting space, conveniently located in the redeveloped Lionshead area near the Vail Gondola. Named the ‘Green Business of the Year’ in 2009 by the Vail Valley Partnership Success Awards, the Antlers Vail condominiums is also proud to be a Green Star-rated business. With condominiums ranging from studio suites up to four bedrooms and plenty of space to spread out, each room at the Antlers includes fully-equipped kitchens, fireplaces, outdoor balconies, free Internet access and free parking in a heated indoor garage. There are numerous restaurants, galleries and shops within walking distance, and the free Vail town shuttle stops just footsteps away. For more information, call 1-800-843-8245 or visit the Antlers web site at www.antlersvail.com.

Media Contacts: Rob LeVine, General Manager, The Antlers at Vail, (970) 476-2471, RLeVine@antlersvail.com or Darla Worden, WordenGroup Strategic Public Relations, (307) 734-5335, darla@wordenpr.com.

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I just returned from a vacation to Disneyland, and while we were in Anaheim we stayed at a hotel owned by a large, well-known chain. I was curious about this corporate hotel’s eco-friendly initiatives – both from a personal standpoint and professionally, as I do public relations work for the Antlers at Vail. The Green Star-rated Antlers has been committed to environmentally conscious practices long before ‘green’ was cool, and was named the 2009 ‘Green Business of the Year’ by the Vail Valley Partnership Success Awards.

Fulfilling a lifelong dream of being an Important Undercover Corporate Spy, I donned my disguise (in this case, dark glasses and Mickey Mouse ears) and informally conducted my own eco-research. The first green evidence I discovered in our hotel room was a typical card in the bathroom affirming the hotel’s dedication to saving water; it instructed us to re-hang towels if we wanted to reuse them. Another card by the bed advised us that the hotel only changes sheets every third day, unless we set the card on the pillow indicating that we wanted the sheets changed. I also discovered Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) in some of the light fixtures and a low-consumption toilet (which, unfortunately, catapulted water out of the bowl when it flushed – but that’s another story) in the bathroom. In seeming conflict with the alleged dedication to water saving, the shower was fitted with a regular flow showerhead and I noticed that housekeeping ran the dishwasher when they cleaned our room even though it only contained four items.

At the hotel’s breakfast buffet, Styrofoam was in use everywhere – dishes, bowls and cups. Boy, was it tough to drink coffee from a Styrofoam cup knowing the dangers – but such is the depth of my caffeine addiction. There were no recycling bins in the breakfast area, and I didn’t see any in the room, lobby or public areas; in fact, each afternoon the housekeepers stacked up so many huge bags of trash along one of the outdoor paths we had to walk a different route.

Like the Wendy’s commercial says, “You know when it’s real.” If you’re trying to live in a more environmentally conscious way, your radar can pretty quickly pick up when a business is mainly adopting eco-friendly practices that happen to save money. Visiting this chain hotel made me even prouder of the Antlers’ authentic and long-standing green practices, because many of its eco-friendly programs actually cost the company money and additional staff time.

For instance, the Antlers recycles 15 tons of waste annually. Along with an in-office recycling system, the property makes it easy for guests to recycle by putting different colored trash bags in the rooms for glass, plastic and aluminum recyclables as well as collection bins on each floor of the hotel. Since 1988, the Antlers staff has adopted a two-mile stretch along the I-70 corridor near the top of Vail Pass, volunteering their time to pick up trash from the area.

The Antlers Vail covers the entire cost of bus passes for its employees who opt to take the bus rather than driving to work. The company also made a significant capital investment in environmentally friendly in-house laundry equipment in 2007. The ozone washing machine allows the hotel to use cooler water temperatures and save energy, while the phosphate-free detergent is biodegradable and far less polluting than typical phosphoric acid-based cleaning products.

If you’d like to know more about the Antlers green programs, click here. Meanwhile, rest assured that I’ll continue to be ever watchful and vigilant in my corporate eco-espionage; my new secret code name is Antlers Agent 99.

Eliza Cross, WordenGroup Public Relations

P.S. Leave a comment if you’re old enough to remember which television show featured Agent 99!