A Look Back at Hotels, Waste, and Lean Concepts
Facebook reminded me the other day of a funny thing I found in a hotel four years ago. It still made me chuckle, so I shared it on LinkedIn:
The idea of a bar of soap with a hole in it and a box with a matching hole in still seems like an exercise in overdesign.
As Kevin Meyer pointed out on Twitter, why does “green” soap have unnecessary packaging?
A “green” bar in unnecessary packaging…
— Kevin Meyer (@Kevin_Meyer) October 2, 2018
Well, the hole reduces the amount of paper :-)
What do you think? Please scroll down (or click) to post a comment. Or please share the post with your thoughts on LinkedIn.
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It seems like there are tradeoffs. I was confused, as a customer, thinking it was an empty box. It seems like they could just provide a smaller bar of soap, without a hole, which requires a smaller box. Is the box recycled? Maybe a refillable pump dispenser on the wall is the least-waste way to go? I often use a tiny bar of soap once and the rest goes to waste because I check out or, worse, the hotel housekeeping throws it away even though I'm still in the hotel.
I wrote about that “thrown away soap” problem way back in 2007:
Here are some other past blog posts about hotels, Lean, and waste:
What sorts of things do you see in hotels? Good examples of Lean or “Like Lean” practice? Waste and annoyance?