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Global Soap Project uses hotel soap to save lives
Want to contribute to global health? Look no further than your local hotel - and their stash of used soap.
The Global Soap Project, founded in 2009 by Uganda native Derreck Kayongo, collects used hotel soap from hotels across the country, cleaning and reprocessing the bars before shipping them overseas to countries like Haiti, Kenya, Uganda and Swaziland.
Kayongo emigrated to the United States in the early 1990s and was shocked by the wastefulness of hotels who replaced rooms with new bars of soap each day.
"I tried to return the new soap to the concierge since I thought they were charging me for it," Kayongo said. "When I was told it was just hotel policy to provide new soap every day, I couldn't believe it."
Hundreds of millions of bars are discarded each year, Kayongo, a recipient of the CNN Heroes Award, told the news channel.
"The issue is not the availability of soap. The issue is cost," Kayongo said. "Make $1 a day, and soap costs 25 cents. I'm not a good mathematician, but I'm telling you I'm not going to spend that 25 cents on a bar of soap. I'm going to buy sugar. I'm going to buy medicine. I'm going to do all the things I think are keeping me alive."
Kayongo contacted his father, a former soap maker in Uganda, and began to devise a plan to send the soap back to countries in need.
So far, around 300 hotels participate in the program, which uses volunteers to collect the soap and ship to the Project's main Atlanta warehouse. The bars are "reprocessed," a procedure which includes sanitization, chilling, and re-cutting. The bars are then sent to a third party lab for approval before being sent overseas. The process is simple, but time-consuming, Kayongo, says, as bars of different brands cannot be mixed.
To date, the Global Soap Project has provided more than 100,000 bars of soap for communities in nine countries.
Thank you to CNN for the tip and for honoring such a worthy recipient with your award.
"The issue is not the availability of soap. The issue is cost," Kayongo said. "Make $1 a day, and soap costs 25 cents. I'm not a good mathematician, but I'm telling you I'm not going to spend that 25 cents on a bar of soap. I'm going to buy sugar. I'm going to buy medicine. I'm going to do all the things I think are keeping me alive."
Kayongo contacted his father, a former soap maker in Uganda, and began to devise a plan to send the soap back to countries in need.
So far, around 300 hotels participate in the program, which uses volunteers to collect the soap and ship to the Project's main Atlanta warehouse. The bars are "reprocessed," a procedure which includes sanitization, chilling, and re-cutting. The bars are then sent to a third party lab for approval before being sent overseas. The process is simple, but time-consuming, Kayongo, says, as bars of different brands cannot be mixed.
To date, the Global Soap Project has provided more than 100,000 bars of soap for communities in nine countries.
Thank you to CNN for the tip and for honoring such a worthy recipient with your award.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stuart Kaplowitz, MFT Jun 17th 2011 5:17PM
Thank you Mr Derreck Kayongo for doing this.
Dr. Robin B. Dilley, Ph.D Jun 17th 2011 5:17PM
It takes a lot of care to think of something so wonderful. Thank you for caring.
Nick Jun 19th 2011 11:47AM
McLean, this is a very interesting and positive story, but I'm going to have to play a spoil-sport here..
While the folks who began the project have their hearts at the right place, the strategy they've adopted appears short-sighted. When you ship used soap from all across the country to a central warehouse (and then beyond to other countries), you've got to take into account the total carbon emissions footprint of transporting the stuff. And then there is the energy and water intensiveness of the soap processing (sanitization, chilling and recutting) - all of which arguably requires huge amounts of water, energy and other resources. Taking into account all these inputs, the reprocessed soap is going to be highly highly unsustainable from an environmental perspective. Whatever activity we do now or in the future, no matter how big or small, we've got to take into account its environmental impact on a life cycle basis.. considering all the externalities.
Goes without saying that it's a shame that hotel guests in our country use a new soap every morning when there are million others in the world who do not have access to basic hygiene necessities. We need to think out of the box if this problem is to be solved sustainably. Would'nt it be a better idea to help build low-cost soap factories in poor countries (cut down on emissions from international shipping and local employment generation) instead of sending soap from here? also, how about we make all our hotels change their procedures and not provide daily replacements unless specifically requested? I've always believed it is better to cut down on the generation of waste in the first place than to try and recycle is later (most people either dont know or chose to ignore that recylcing is such an energy-intensive process).
My best wishes to Derreck and his team.
ruby Jun 20th 2011 8:03AM
I do applaud Mr Derrek and I hope they reach even more communities as well as have more hotels jump on the project.
On the other hand, Nick, you have a point as well. Hopefully they are already looking into the issue.