Pictures of littered beaches and animals with plastic straws in their airways have induced us to banish as much plastic as possible from the hotel and gastronomy.
In a first step, we will be doing without all straws (approx. 10,000 per year after all) by 1 October 2018. In addition, stirring sticks, coffee-to-go cups, plastic lids, plastic bags and coffee biscuits in plastic packaging will also be abolished. A glass drinking tube to replace the plastic straws is currently being tested.

"But I think that our cocktails and lemonade will taste just as good without a straw as they did before," says Joachim Kastner, managing director of Schloss Burgellern: "Even though all of our waste ends up in the incinerator, we still have to set a good example. But we also do this for our local animals. For example, we have already found straws and plastic as tree material in bird nests in our castle park."

The renunciation of plastic is a big challenge in the hotel and gastronomy industry. On the one hand, hygiene naturally plays a major role, but so do legal requirements. In addition, many products are individually packaged by the industry to achieve greater profit margins. Especially on the breakfast buffet, one usually finds individually packed butter, jam or sausage.

At Burgellern Castle we have been working here for years on a plastic-free breakfast. We succeeded in doing this with one exception: the popular Nutella. But here, too, we are working on an alternative solution.