ORLANDO, FLA.—The luxury amenities used by guests at The New York Palace Hotel will have a second life in third world countries. The luxury Manhattan hotel added to its corporate responsibility initiatives by implementing an innovative soap-recycling program. “Reducing environmental impact is a priority for us, and Clean the World’s ability to recycle discarded soap was a simple solution for our ‘reduce waste’ team,” said Elvir Dervisevic, director of housekeeping.
The New York Palace Hotel is the first hotel in the New York Metropolitan area to join the Clean the World program. Whitney Hoover, an independent sustainability consultant, and Cecile Epperson, director of Wellness and Sustainability for the Palace Hotel, met Peter Insalaco of Clean the World at the GoGreen Expo in March.
“Once we learned that we would not only help prevent tons of waste but also contribute life-saving tools, we were eager to be the first to implement the recycling program in New York,” said Epperson. “It’s an obvious solution with dual impact.”
The gently-used and discarded amenities from the hotel’s 813 rooms and 86 suites will be shipped to the Clean the World Recycling Operations Center in Orlando. After a sanitization process, the soap is provided to homeless shelters and impoverished people around the world, where hygiene tools are crucial in the prevention of diseases such as acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease. Clean the World estimates that the hotel will provide over 25,000 bars of soap monthly to underprivileged people in desperate need of soap, while simultaneously diverting 28 tons of landfill waste and recycling more than four tons of plastic each year.
Go to Clean the World and The New York Palace Hotel.
