Hilton Announces Soap Recycling

Business Green: Many of us may feel a twinge of guilt at swiping soap from hotels, but it turns out that this petty theft may be the greener option.

US hotels throw out an estimated 2.6 million bars of soap every year, most of which ends up in landfill. But unused soap represents a waste mountain that global hotel chain Hilton Worldwide is now committed to tackling.

The company has agreed to collect used soap to donate to the Global Soap Project, a non-profit organization that reprocesses used soap from hotels into new bars that can then be distributed to vulnerable populations in developing countries at risk of disease related to poor sanitation and hygiene.

Hand washing with soap is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrhea and pneumonia, which together are responsible for more than 3.5 million child deaths each year.

The Global Soap Project was founded by Derreck Kayongo and his wife Sarah in 2009, and has distributed more than 25 tons of soap to communities in 20 countries across four continents. Kayongo had the idea when he was a refugee in Kenya and found that access to soap was extremely limited.

"Even when available, those living on less than $1 a day had to choose between buying food or soap," he said. "People were suffering from illness simply because they couldn't wash their hands."

Hilton Worldwide said that the new partnership will produce more than a million new soap bars for the Atlanta-based project, and that the company will take a seat on the board to help guide its growth.

"We are proud to invest in the Global Soap Project and are excited to leverage our expertise to support their organization, while simultaneously solving critical social needs," said Christopher Corpuel, vice president of sustainability at Hilton Worldwide.

Green Hotel Dream: Garbage In, Energy Out

MSNBC: Unlike most hotel guests, Shawn Seipler spends a lot of time thinking about the wasted resources left behind after he checks out of a hotel.

Two years ago, the thought of the barely used bar of soap in his hotel-room shower led him to create CleanTheWorld.org, a non-profit organization that has since collected, sanitized and shipped more than 8.5 million bars of soap to impoverished communities in 45 countries around the world.

These days, Seipler is focusing on an even bigger target — the millions of tons of food, trash and other waste products hotels discard every year. Now in development, Clean the World Mobile Waste Processors are trailer-sized processors that will turn that waste into energy.

“There are a lot of [stand-alone] waste-to-energy systems out there,” said Seipler. “What our units will do is pull up to a hotel, take its organic waste and other recyclables and process it into gas and electricity that can be sold back to the hotel at a lower rate than they’d normally pay.”

That, said Seipler, will not only help keep waste out of local landfills, leading to lower waste-hauling costs, but also result in lower energy bills: “Hopefully, that translates into lower costs for guests.”

Turning trash into energy is hardly a new concept, although the bulk of the business is still conducted through large-scale municipal facilities that incinerate hundreds of tons of waste per day.

Adapting that technology to smaller commercial settings, such as hotels, will be a challenge, said Patricia Griffin, president and founder of the Green Hotels Association: “There may be issues of aesthetics, exhaust and space. A lot of hotels don’t have an extra square inch.”

Nevertheless, Griffin also believes the hotel industry could be a prime target for such efforts. “Hotels have always been progressive and on the leading edge — many of us saw our first flat-screen TV in a hotel,” she told msnbc.com. “If there’s a way of turning waste into energy that works for them, I think hotels would jump on it.”

“We think there’s real potential in it,” said Jennifer Bauchner, director of rooms and sustainability for North America for Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which already participates in Clean the World’s soap-recycling program. “Any opportunity to divert waste from a landfill is something the industry needs to explore.”

For now, they’ll have to wait as Clean the World continues testing its prototype. According to Seipler, they hope to have their first commercial unit in place in Europe in early 2012 with the first ones in North America by the middle of the year.

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