Embassy Suites as an environmental debacle

On the grand football-roadtrip-adventure this weekend, we stayed a couple nights at an Embassy Suites outside of Detroit. It's become my father's default option as a hotel for these trips. He likes the breakfast, and the accommodations are comfortable. Certainly it's nice to have a fresh omelette, waffles, various baked goods, weak coffee, and all the eggs, sausage, and bacon you could crave at your beck and call. Certainly Banana loved the pool. But it is also an example of all that is not sustainable in our society. Like the low-end Hummer of hotels.

All of the food we ate was delivered by massive food service semis. Though it was early September and prime time for peaches and nectarines, there wasn't a sliver of local produce to be found. There was one entree on the dinner menu that claimed to be a local specialty--or at least a Great Lakes specialty: the pan-fried lake perch. The waffle mix was kept in small plastic cups, and in front of every set of actual glasses was a larger supply of disposable cups.

Add to this the amount of energy chewed up by the wide open atrium spaces that are lit and climate-controlled at all hours, and you have one example (emblematic of thousands) of the ways we are squandering our resources.