Lifestyle Sustainable Living

The Sleep-Enhancing Way One Hotel Chain Is Upcycling Its Worn Bedsheets

Tehrene Firman

March 27, 2018

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You might try your best to be environmentally friendly at hotels, opting not to have your sheets or towels changed during your stay in order to save water. But have you ever thought about what happens to the linens once they have a harmless hole or a tiny stain maiming them? According to Afar, the ethical disposal of old sheets is part of a much bigger problem that one hotel chain is trying to solve.

Everything from bedsheets and towels to restaurant napkins and "fast fashion" clothing ends up in one place: landfills. Though most textiles are recyclable, Afar reported only 16 percent actually go through that process, meaning most contribute to the 16 million tons of textile waste produced every year in the United States. So, to reduce its environmental footprint, Westin Hotels and Resorts is turning sheets that would have gotten tossed out into really cute pajamas for kids.

The program—Project Rise: ThreadForward—works with organizations to collect, process, and reweave the hotel bed linens, turning them into children’s pajamas for kiddos in need.

The program, called Project Rise: ThreadForward, works with Clean the World—an organization that finds sustainable ways to help global communities—and Delivering Good—a nonprofit that funnels leftovers from the fashion and home industries to those in need—to collect, process, and reweave the hotel bed linens, turning them into pajamas that are given to underserved kiddos. In five months, 50 Westin hotels globally donated about 30,000 pounds of bed linens and terry for the pajamas, according to a press release.

The bedtime duds, made in sizes 2 to 8, feature Westin's signature color palette of "zest, mint, and flax" emblazoned with a design of a child rising over the moon with a book, which the brand notes is a nod to "a better sleep empowering a better day." On April 16, Westin will sell the pajamas for $25 each on its website, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit Delivering Good. Also, with the help of Delivering Good, the first 1,500 pajamas will be distributed next month to children around the world, particularly those who are prone to sleep anxieties, since "the simple act of putting on pajamas as part of a bedtime routine is one way to improve a child’s quality of sleep," the press release stated.

This hotel chain is definitely onto something, and hopefully it sparks other big brands to rethink how they can turn their trash into sleep-enhancing treasure, too.

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