Hilton’s decision this past week to make discarded soap and amenity recycling a brand standard among its All Suites brands is a “game changer” for Clean the World, the organization doing the repurposing/recycling, according to Shawn Seipler, Founder and CEO of the Orlando, Fla. based nonprofit.
Hilton’s decision is significant in several ways. It is the first major hotel company to make soap and amenity recycling a brand standard. Second, the commitment that includes Embassy Suites by Hilton, Homewood Suites by Hilton and Home2 Suites by Hilton will elevate Hilton’s participation to 1,370 hotels. According to Maxime Verstraete, Vice President, Corporate Responsibility & ADA Compliance, Hilton Worldwide, Hilton was already the most represented hotel company donating product to Clean the World prior to the All Suites brands commitment. Third, the addition of the 750 All Suites hotels represents a 20 percent growth in hotels represented for Clean the World, proving that it can take on large groups of hotels in one fell swoop. Once the All Suites Hotels are participating in the program (by early December), Hilton will have more than 200,000 hotel rooms on board.
For those of you not familiar with Clean the World, it was launched seven years ago by Seipler, who saw partially used soap and other items being thrown away and decided to do something about it. “Seven years ago I was scraping soap in a garage,” Seipler told me. Today, Clean the World has recycling centers in Orlando, Las Vegas and Hong Kong. The donated soap is reprocessed and sanitized. Since 2009, according to its website, Clean the World has distributed more than 33 million bars of soap in 100 countries. The donated soap helps reduce the amount of deaths and illnesses caused by acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease.
Four Million Bars of Soap
Through its partnerships with Clean the World and other organizations, Hilton’s hotels have already collected more than one million pounds of partially-used soap, which have been recycled into more than four million new bars of soap. This process has also prevented more than 570 tons of waste going to landfills. Hilton previously was a significant supporter of Global Soap, which merged its operations with Clean the World last year.
At the corporate level, Hilton has invested more than $2 million in soap recycling advancements. That does not take into account more than $1 million invested at the individual property level. In total, Hilton’s combined corporate and property-level contributions to Clean the World exceed $3 million.
Hilton is certainly proving that entire large brands can make soap and amenity recycling standard practice. Can you imagine the impact if our industry’s other major companies did the same? Or even if Hilton’s other brands joined in? It cannot be that difficult.
Verstraete says that at the right time Hilton will expand its standard requirement to its other brands. Hilton will cover the costs for the new hotels coming on board as part of the All Suites brands commitment through 2017. Hilton’s Quality Assurance team will verify participation. “We will be doing a lot of training the next few weeks,” Verstraete says.
When Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti, I thought about Clean the World right away. Sure enough, the organization immediately started preparing to send soap. Shawn told me they set a goal of 400,000 bars of soap. When I spoke with him on Friday, October 14, Clean the World was up to 450,000 bars. “We will hopefully hit 550,000 bars boxed,” Shawn says.
Amazingly, when amenity suppliers make soap donations to Clean the World, the plastic and paper packaging is removed. Clean the World does not want to be exporting that type of waste to countries in need.
What Hilton and Clean the World’s many other lodging industry partners are doing is great and making a huge difference around the world. If you are one of the thousands who help Clean the World, you have reason to be proud of the real difference you are making.
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