The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Goodbye to the old-fashioned hotel pool
All those chemicals and water pumps are bad for the environment, so it’s time to choose a stay that offers a more eco-friendly alternative, says Richard Hammond
The hotel’s towels are washed only on request, the buffet breakfast includes freshly baked organic bread and the pre-dinner cocktails are suffused with herbs from the kitchen garden. Most hotel welcome packs now include elaborate details of how your stay is helping to save the planet, but when you get to the bit about the swimming pool, the eco claims begin to sound more like greenwash. Typically, a wildlifefriendly garden habitat will have been turned into a sterile basin filled with gallons of water. Keeping such a huge body of water warm throughout a season can guzzle thousands of kilowatts of energy, especially outdoors where the water needs to be continually heated to overcome the cooling effect of evaporation.
In addition, a pump is required to drive a filter; this collects debris such as leaves and hair, circulates water to prevent it stagnating and disperses disinfectants (to deal with nasties such as sweat and urine, as well as personalcare products and sunscreens). Not only is this energy sapping, but people are beginning to question the impact of these chemicals on our bodies and on the wider environment.
“We call it the ‘wellness paradox’,” says George Ingledew of Origin Aqua, a company that specialises in making swimming pools more sustainable. “Visitors spend lots of money on holistic health and well-being treatments, but then are willing to jump into a pool full of chemicals.”
Ingledew says that it has become easier to reduce the carbon emissions of swimming pools thanks to more widely available energy-saving measures and developments in ground- and air-source heating technology, but that the use of chemical sanitisation systems is still widespread. His company offers a solution in a bio-digestion filtration mechanism housing billions of beneficial microbes that out-compete aquatic pathogens. A process of microbial magic, it’s known as biological “predation”, and negates the use of chemical disinfectants.
This state-of-the-art technology has already been installed at several hotels, including a 33ft pool at Swinton Park Country Club & Spa in the Yorkshire Dales (swintonestate.com) and that of the West Lexham glampsite in Norfolk (westlexham.org). Others are in the pipeline, including existing conventional pools that are being retrofitted with this chemical-free technology.
Origin Aqua’s filtration mechanism is effectively bio-mimicking the role of aquatic plants in ponds – a naturally occurring phenomenon that inventor David Pagan Butler has been championing for over a decade with his “organic pools”. The basic premise is that a retaining wall partitions the swimming area away from a regeneration zone, where aquatic plants and sand act as a natural filter for oxygenating and cleaning the water. They require only a small pump to run, they don’t require chemicals and, he says, “they’re a brilliant habitat for wildlife – like coral reefs on land”.
Butler, whose YouTube channel shows how to install natural pools, says he’s seeing more and more interest in these kinds of natural swimming areas. He puts this down in part to the rising cost of energy and chemicals. While they may be cheaper than conventional pools (Butler says they can cost as little as a few thousand pounds to install), organic pools do require ongoing maintenance. Annick Carle-Roux, co-owner of Le Mas de Saribou (masdesaribou.fr) – a holiday house in the Ardèche – says that she considers her natural swimming pool more like an “aquatic garden” that requires regular tending.
Hoteliers attempting to live up to the green tag therefore don’t have to throw the eco-baby out with the swimming pool water. Whether using plants or bio-mimicking them, there are practical solutions for those hoteliers who want to offer guests the luxury of a swim, but want to do so without leaving a huge (wet) footprint.
Don’t be surprised if you see dragonflies and butterflies flittering across the water
The Green Traveller by Richard Hammond is out on Thursday (Pavilion Books, £18.99)