Clean the World
Global View
By Katherine Manfredi, CMM
WE TAKE IT FOR GRANTED. We likely have at least a handful. Yet to others it’s like gold—it might as well be a bar of gold for some. Hard to believe those little bars of soap we use each time we stay at hotels can save lives, and most of us don’t even think about what happens to them when we check out. Luckily, someone is thinking about it.
Shawn Seipler and business partner Paul Till collect partially used bars of soap and toiletries, sanitize them and deliver them into the hands of the needy. Without them, children from third-world countries are especially vulnerable to disease. 9,000 children die each day of acute respiratory and diarrheal disease. Simple hand washing can reduce those 3.5 million annual deaths by up to 60 percent.
Little did I know the difference our small efforts would make when we connected with Clean the World (CTW) in Orlando, Fla. We were looking for a way to integrate CSR and green initiatives into our four-chapter MPI conference, trade show and networking event through recycled amenities. I struck out with local homeless shelters worried about potential health concerns with opened toiletries (though experts told me likely there would be no issue). We struck gold when we found CTW.
We coordinated a drive, asking attendees to bring us new and used toiletries from their many hotel stays, as well as their partially used amenities at checkout at the end of the conference. Given a typical bar of hotel soap weighs one ounce, we hoped to collect 10 pounds from the 350 attendees—about 160 bars.
Sixty-nine pounds (1,100 bars of soap) later, we discovered that with very little effort we could give back through a CTW partnership program that provides jobs in their sterilization facility to locals in recovery and helps get homeless people off the streets. The program helps the environment by keeping those little bottles from landfill (CTW recycles them) and also reduces groundwater contamination with amenities going to good use rather than landfill. Not to mention the lives saved elsewhere!
Some hotels recognize they can do good with the partially used toiletries they once discarded, setting up programs with local shelters. Yet, others still pay to have these precious slivers of hope hauled away to the dump. Look to groups like CTW for a simple way your hotel can help save the environment—and a life—at www.cleantheworld.org.
KATHERINE MANFREDI, CMM, is a meeting professional currently working with Conference Partners Inc. in Florida. She can be reached at kamanfredi@comcast.net.