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How Hotel Soap is Saving the World; An Interview with Derreck Kayongo

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As an avid traveler, I have often wondered what happens to all the used amenities, from hotel rooms, around the world.  I used to manage an Econo Lodge & Suites, so I know that we threw all of ours out. I had no idea, at the time, that anything could be done with them. As a traveler, my thought was: “If I take them home, it’s less of a waste.” And that’s where I stopped thinking about it; until I heard about The Global Soap Project.

Global Soap Project

Founded in Atlanta, in 2009, by Derreck and Sarah Kayongo, the Global Soap Project collects and recycles used bars of soap, and other amenities, from hotels, and sends the new products out to more than 30 countries around the world, which desperately need soap. In their first four years, the Global Soap Project delivered more than 2 million bars of soap, to populations in need, and diverted 500,000 pounds of soap from landfills. I was shocked to hear that the leading cause of death for children in developing countries are hygiene related illnesses. Hand washing with soap is the single most effective way of preventing those deaths. We often take for granted, here in North America, the simplest of things: a bar of soap, clean water, and easy access to food. I am honoured that Derreck took the time, to answer my questions, about the Global Soap Project:

1) How did you come up with the idea to recycle hotel soap?
My father was a soap maker before the Idi Amin wars that crippled the Uganda’s economy. I learnt how to make soap from him and once I got to the USA I realized after having spent a couple of nights in a hotel that they throw away partially used bars of soap. After some investigation into the issue, I was shocked to learn that American Hotels alone throw away 800 million bars of soap every year which amounts to 2.6 million bars of soap annually! In juxtaposition, having been a refugee I knew  about the two million kids that die each year due to hygiene issues like Diarrhia. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) you could mitigate these diseases by 40% if you taught kids how to wash their hands with soap. With that knowledge my background in soap making and my discovery of soap being trashed by hotels my life sweven was born; hence the Global Soap.

 

2) Is there a limit to the number of hotels that can participate in the project right now (without expanding your facilities)?
Of course every growth in Hotel participation requires similar growth at the production side as well. Growth is our goal because it affords us the opportunity to provide more soap to the prodigious demand among the poor globally. So the answer is right now we would welcome any support to expand our production albeit currently we can still handle new hotel registration.

 

3) Are there any types of soap you do not accept? Would you prefer to some day see the project only accept all natural soaps?
Right now we don’t accept walk-in soaps which means if someone brings us two bars of soap from a supermarket it doesn’t really help us because it’s a one time sort of gift versus the large numbers of soap we get from the hotels. What would be more helpful is if people donated to us the funds which would in turn help us manufacture and recycle the soap currently being thrown away. It costs us less than 10 cents to make a new bar of soap and with added support it shall be even cheaper than that soon. So for a dollar you could help a family of four with soap for more than a month! Regarding all natural soap we welcome the idea but our goal currently is to answer the question of all that soap being thrown away into our environment. By recycling it was are answering a very important environmental question.

 

4) What are your plans for the future? Do you see The Global Soap Project opening new recycling facilities, in other areas besides Las Vegas? 
Our future at Global Soap involves the formation of new recycling centers both here in the USA and a broad. This will help us better facilitate both  access to the raw material as well as strategically positioning our distribution processes. We currently have partner entities in Global Soap Europe, Hong Kong and looking at others as well.

 

5) Is there any other message you would really like me to share about in my post right now? Any special initiatives coming up?

As we near the end of the year, we encourage folk to keep Global Soap in mind as they consider charitable giving that in this case answers both a global health issue and the environment. Hygiene Health is especially important today given the Ebola problem we see in Africa which could easily find itself here in our hemisphere. Secondly we encourage those concerned to contact us about participating in the upcoming Global Hand washing Day (Oct. 15th) activities. Lastly if companies or schools want a great speaker they can contact me for a keynote by reaching me at [email protected].

To learn more about the Global Soap Project visit their Website, or follow them on Twitter or Facebook. You can also help by spreading the word to family, friends and hotels by sharing this article!

Comments

  1. This is such a great idea! I know what we do with our soap/shampoo from hotels. Anything that we don’t end up using, we donate to our school. There are many kids who come in who don’t have water at home to shower, so they do so at school, and those supplies are donated to these kids in need.
    Great to help others!

    Reply

  2. Really Great Interview. When I asked at one hotel, I think it was in Calgary, they were putting the used soaps in a bin out back and the homeless never let the bin get full.

    This is way better.

    Reply

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