Short answer: do not begin by removing every bottle. Begin with purchasing and water-quality baselines, choose a service model, run a 90-day pilot, verify the product water, and expand in controlled stages. A refill system becomes economical and user-friendly only when treatment, storage, bottling or dispensing, sanitation, maintenance, and guest experience are designed as one process.
Four Decisions before Buying Equipment
1. Source water and quality targets
Sample the source, downstream of storage, and the furthest outlets. Test the relevant parameters under Indonesia’s Minister of Health Regulation No. 2 of 2023, including microbiological and physical/chemical parameters appropriate to the source and building risk.
Treatment must answer the data. A sediment filter does not reduce TDS. Carbon does not replace disinfection. UV does not physically remove particles. RO does not eliminate the need to sanitize storage and downstream plumbing.
2. Drinking-water locations
Map guestrooms, pantries, restaurants, gyms, pools, ballrooms, meeting rooms, back-of-house spaces, and staff areas. Consider guest walking distance, peak demand, service access, drainage, power, and leakage risk.
3. Service model
| Model | Suitable when | Strength | Must be managed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central treatment + reusable bottling | Volume is high and a hygienic room is available | Centralized quality and branding | Washing, filling, capping, distribution, return, breakage |
| Refill station per floor | Guests can walk a short distance | Fewer devices and consumables | Area cleaning, queues, accessibility, monitoring |
| POU UF/carbon in pantry/room | Source quality is relatively good and targets fit | Compact and avoids bottle distribution | Per-unit cartridges, outlet sanitation, service access |
| Under-sink RO per outlet | TDS or dissolved targets need reduction | Treatment close to consumption | Pretreatment, reject water, membrane/cartridge, leak protection |
| Central RO + distribution loop | Scale and engineering resources support it | High capacity | Hygienic loop, stagnation, disinfection, monitoring, capital cost |
4. Process ownership
Engineering cannot work alone. Housekeeping manages vessels and rooms, F&B manages serving, purchasing holds the baseline, quality/HSE owns procedures and test results, and front office explains the change to guests. Assign one process owner and a clear RACI.
A 90-Day Pilot Roadmap
Days 1–15: Measure the baseline
Collect 12 months of bottle purchasing by size and use area. Reconcile it with occupancy, banquet covers, and waste records.
Calculate:
bottles per occupied room-night = room bottles ÷ occupied room-nightslanded cost per bottle = price + freight + handling + cold storage + waste feepackaging mass = quantity by type × bottle/cap/label weight- complaints about availability, taste, odour, and packaging.
Do not claim savings until filter consumables, electricity, reject water, laboratory work, washing labour and chemicals, lost/broken vessels, and downtime are counted.
Days 16–30: Test and select the concept
- Test water under normal conditions and a representative seasonal risk condition.
- Establish peak flow and simultaneous demand.
- Select one or two pilot models.
- Prepare a simple PFD/P&ID, sampling points, drains, electrical loads, and maintenance clearances.
- Request performance data for the exact model, not a claim transferred from another product.
Where sediment or building-wide conditions require pretreatment, the Pentair C-500 automatic prefilter and HydraSmart carbon filter/softener may form part of the design following analysis. At drinking points, compare EU-25 UF or Everpure with ES60-S under-sink RO.
Days 31–60: Install, commission, and write procedures
Commissioning should include:
- model, flow direction, seals, pressure, flow, and drain verification;
- flushing and sanitation under an approved procedure;
- baseline differential pressure and flow;
- inlet and outlet analysis by an appropriate laboratory;
- leak tests and alarms where fitted;
- installation, cartridge-change, sanitation, and sampling labels;
- training for engineering, housekeeping, F&B, and front office.
For reusable bottles, establish one-way movement from dirty returns through washing, rinsing/sanitizing, drying, inspection, filling, capping, clean storage, distribution, and return. Separate clean and dirty areas as required by the risk assessment.
Days 61–90: Run the pilot and measure the user experience
Start with one floor, tower, or room type. Monitor daily during the first two weeks, then adjust frequency based on risk and evidence.
Pilot KPIs:
| KPI | How to read it |
|---|---|
| Purchased-bottle reduction | Compare per occupied room-night, not total volume when occupancy changes |
| Product-water test results | Must meet acceptance criteria; trends matter more than one result |
| Availability | Percentage of time a drinking point can be used |
| Cartridge/membrane life | Compare actual volume, differential pressure, and test results |
| RO reject-water ratio | Measure in real operating conditions, not only from a brochure |
| Container return/loss | Determines replacement purchasing |
| Water/energy per wash cycle | Tests whether reuse is genuinely efficient |
| Complaints and adoption | Classify access, taste, temperature, cleanliness, and communication |
Building a Business Case without Inventing Savings
Use annual total cost of ownership:
Refill TCO = annualized equipment + consumables + energy + feed water + reject/drain + laboratory + washing + labour + replacement vessels + maintenance + downtime
Compare it with:
Bottled TCO = purchase + freight + storage + refrigeration + room delivery + inventory loss + waste handling + fees
Add low/base/high cases for occupancy, cartridge life, electricity price, reject ratio, vessel loss, and labour hours. Payback is meaningful only when both alternatives use the same scope and assumptions.
Hygiene and Guest Communication
Removing a sealed bottle moves the control points. The hotel needs to make its alternative easy to trust:
- use vessels that can be cleaned and inspected;
- avoid uncontrolled manual refilling;
- close bottles after filling and define a holding time;
- add a date or batch identifier where appropriate;
- show a concise source, treatment, testing, and contact explanation;
- maintain assistance for medical needs and specific guest preferences;
- avoid “100% safe,” “removes every contaminant,” or “zero microplastics” without a defined test scope.
WHO says evidence about health effects from microplastics in drinking water remains limited, while actions that reduce plastic release to the environment still have benefits.1 UNEP recommends life-cycle thinking and reuse instead of merely exchanging one disposable material for another.2
When Is the Pilot Ready to Scale?
Consider rollout when:
- product-water results meet acceptance criteria through several sampling cycles;
- procedures are followed and records are complete;
- capacity remains sufficient at peak demand;
- complaints have root causes and service-recovery actions;
- the TCO and sensitivity analysis are approved;
- consumables, spares, and laboratory capacity are available;
- vessel and distribution hygiene risks are controlled.
Conclusion
Hotels and apartments can reduce plastic bottles without reducing convenience, but the result comes from operating design. A 90-day pilot is long enough to connect water analysis, treatment, hygiene, guest journey, and economics. Use the hotel and apartment drinking-water design page to begin a technical discussion with Watermart.
References
Footnotes
-
World Health Organization, Microplastics in drinking-water, 2019. ↩
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United Nations Environment Programme, Addressing Single-Use Plastic Products Pollution using a Life Cycle Approach, 2021. ↩