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Sustainability at Creta Maris Resort

Sustainability at Creta Maris Resort

Sustainability

Creta Maris Resort has a strong commitment to sustainability, which goes beyond recycling and using environmentally friendly products in housekeeping.

The sustainable practices at Creta Maris Resort have multiple facets. Recycling has always been an integral part of the environmental awareness of the resort. The use of environmental-friendly products raised 80% – 90% in the past year alone. But, besides standard practices designed to reduce water consumption and to save energy, Creta Maris Resort employs many other strategies to promote sustainability. You will notice solar panels that are used for water heating but also LED lights that consume less electricity. Plus: we are actively involved in environmentally-friendly, sustainable, and organic gardening. This is one of the activities that make Creta Maris not only a desirable destination but also fun to explore. In our sustainable gardening practice, we do not use insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, acaricides and chemical fertilizers that pollute aquifers with nitrates and nitrites.

The resort is proactive in managing waste too. We only purchase things we truly need, based on consumer demand, and as much as possible with ecological packaging. Priority is given to products that are locally produced, with recyclable and returnable packaging. Because we care about the environment we also keep the use of needless decoration (cocktails’ decorations) to a minimum. For this purpose, we prefer biodegradable products and we avoid the use of materials containing substances hazardous to public health and the environment.

Regarding waste management, Creta Maris Resort is one of the first hotels in Crete participating in “Food for Feed”, an innovative project transforming hotel’s food wastes into animal feed, for livestock (chickens and pigs) and pets (dogs). Food waste from our restaurants is separated at the source (our hotel’s premises) by our staff, and then transported to the facilities of “Food for Feed” (F4F) project where it is processed through an innovative altered drying & pasteurizing methodology, based on the solar drying technology.

The principles of the project are based on an old and common process in Europe: the use of catering waste in animal husbandry. The United Association of Solid Waste Management in Crete (ESDAK) is the “F4F” ‘s project leader, and the partner organizations are: Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Harokopio University, Agricultural University of Athens, and the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin).

Creta Maris also participates in the pilot project of the Municipality of Hersonissos, called «Pay as you throw» – a usage-pricing model for disposing of municipal solid waste.