Release Date: 10.07.09 | Location: All Metro Atlanta | Organization: Global Soap Project
Atlanta-based group collects six tons of discarded soap from local hotels to fight deadly diseases
Global Soap Project Joins Thousands of People Around the World to Promote Global Handwashing Day on Oct. 15.
Atlanta Marriot Marquis and Intercontinental Hotels in Atlanta have each contributed 1000 pounds of soap so far each; two dozen local hotels are contributing as well as hotels from across the nation.
ATLANTA -- The Global Soap Project (GSP) is joining with UNICEF, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Bank, USAID and others to draw attention to a serious health problem facing children in developing countries.
Of the approximately 120 million children born in the developing world each year, half will live in households without access to improved sanitation, at grave risk to their survival and development. Poor hygiene and lack of access to sanitation together contribute to about 88 percent of deaths from diarrheal diseases, accounting for 1.5 million diarrhea-related under-five deaths each year. Children suffer disproportionately from diarrheal and respiratory diseases and deaths.
Handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrheal and acute respiratory infections, which take the lives of millions of children in developing countries every year. Together, they are responsible for the majority of all child deaths. Yet, despite its lifesaving potential, handwashing with soap is seldom practiced and difficult to promote.
GSP is recovering and recycling discarded soap from hotels using a process by which the soap is sanitized, melted and remolded into new bars, then distributed to refugee camps in Africa, initially, and then worldwide. There is an almost infinite supply of soap with more than 4.6-million hotel rooms in the United States alone, and an estimated 2.6-million bars that are discarded every day. GSP has collected nearly six tons of soap from 60 local Atlanta hotels and plans to ship the soap to Uganda within two weeks.
There is a high mortality rate due to acute respiratory and diarrheal diseases, especially in children under five years old. In Uganda alone, the deaths of 200,000 children in a year were due to preventable diseases—a number that could have been reduced by 76,000 if these children had had access to soap and proper hand washing. Numerous scientific studies indicate that hand washing with soap can reduce the risk of these diseases by 42-65 percent.
The Global Soap Project is uniquely positioned to make an enormous impact not only in the lives of thousands of refugees, but also raise awareness of the dire situation that can be eradicated by a simple solution. In addition to serving a critical healthcare purpose, GSP will divert tons of waste from landfills and employ unskilled labor to manage the soap making process.
(Taken from an article in GlobalAtlanta, 9.17.09)
After years of pondering the question, Mr. Derreck Kayongo, a field coordinator for Atlanta-based relief agency CARE International, this year launched an effort to collect used bars of hotel soap and recycle them for use in refugee camps in Uganda. Entitled The Global Soap Project, the program is a way to fight the spread of disease and allow U.S. hotels to help Africa while also reducing the amount of trash they are paying to have hauled away to landfills.
Mr. Kayongo started by speaking to a meeting of Atlanta hotel managers last April. He was surprised at how many agreed to collect their used soap for him. There are now 60 Atlanta hotels participating. Mr. Kayongo has about six tons of soap in an Alpharetta warehouse and a friend's basement.
GSP hopes to make his first shipment to Africa in October. The soap will be shipped by freighter to Kenya and trucked to Uganda, where it will be sterilized and reshaped into new bars for distribution at refugee camps where soap is scarce. Reprocessing the soap will create jobs in Africa for local workers.
Sarah Kayongo, who is also from Uganda and works for an Atlanta translation firm, has joined Mr. Kayongo to form The Global Soap Project. A freight forwarding company in Green Bay, Wis., Relief Cargo, that specializes in shipping donated items from humanitarian organizations, has agreed to defray part of the $18,000 cost of the first five-ton load to Africa. The project is also seeking donations to cover expenses.
"If we can make this work, I can see setting it up in every country in Africa," said Relief Cargo president Andrew Drescher, whose company has shipped donated items ranging from blankets to school supplies, but never raw soap.
Soap Can Save Lives
The need for soap is great in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa where poverty and many other factors often make it difficult for people to get it, said Emmanuel d'Harcourt, a medical doctor and senior health director at International Rescue Committee, which specializes in resettling refugees and improving the conditions of the camps where they live.
"We have compelling evidence that hand washing with soap is very effective in combating diarrhea and other diseases," Dr. d'Harcourt said. Worldwide, 2 million people annually die of diarrhea, he said. A 2004 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that the number of deaths from diarrhea in the world's poorest areas could be cut in half with increased hand washing with soap.
Steve Luby, one of the authors of that study who now heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's emerging infections program in Bangladesh, sees promise in The Global Soap Project.
"It sounds to me like someone is trying to do something that is good for the world," he added. "I applaud this. It sounds like a better idea than discarding the soap in a landfill or doing nothing at all to address the problems of poverty or ill health."
Poverty is the major reason there is so little soap in the poorest areas of the world, said Dr. Luby. "In Bangladesh, 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per person per day," he said. "In these settings, it is very difficult for families to secure sufficient income for food, water and shelter. The population that would derive the greatest health benefits from soap is the population for whom it is least affordable."
Bahadur Subba, an International Rescue Committee case worker in Atlanta, lived in a refugee camp in Nepal from 1992 to 2005. "We were not supplied with soap," he said
If families had money, they would buy soap from a local market. Those without money would use their food rations to buy soap. "People used to eat less," said Mr. Subba. "They would sell off the extra food in the local market and use the money to buy soap."
Expensive Soap, Diverted from Landfills
The Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, an upscale Atlanta hotel, collects the used bars of Bvlgari soap, which sell new at retail for about $10 per bar.
When the Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead hotel manager, Olivia Brown, heard Mr. Kayongo speak at the hotel association meeting, she was impressed by his passion and by the chance for Ritz-Carlton to contribute to a community cause while increasing its recycling efforts.
The Kayongos understand why Americans would be puzzled over why something as simple as soap would be hard to find in Africa. Yet they point to World Bank statistics that more than a billion people worldwide live on less than $1 per day.
"Having soap is really a luxury, believe it or not," said Sarah Kayongo.
In northern Uganda, nearly 400,000 people still live in refugee camps following years of fighting between a rebel group called the Lord's Resistance Army and government troops
Mr. Kayongo himself was once a refugee from Uganda. His family fled to Kenya following fighting during the reign of military dictator Idi Amin in the early 1970s. His father lost the soap business and a printing press but later returned to Uganda and became a member of parliament there.
With abundant donations from U.S. hotels and the need for soap so great, the Kayongos do not want to limit the project to Atlanta or to Uganda. The need is just too great, they said.
The biggest contributors so far are Atlanta Marriot Marquis downtown and Intercontinental both with 1000 pounds so far each.
The following is a partial list of Atlanta-area hotel participating in The Global Soap Project:
1. The Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead
2. InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta
3. Holiday Inn Atlanta Airport
4. Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown
5. Crowne Plaza Atlanta Airport
6. Marriot Hotel Buckhead
7. Doubletree Buckhead
8. Hyatt Hotel Buckhead
9. Westin Atlanta Airport
10. W Buckhead
11. W Perimeter
12. JW Marriot Buckhead
13. Atlanta Marriott Perimeter Center
14. Fairfield Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport South
15. Atlanta Marriott Century Center
16. Courtyard Atlanta Airport West
17. Cumberland Courtland Yard Hotel
18. Candlewood Suites Birmingham
19. Peachtree Corners Courtyard
20. St. Regis Hotel Buckhead
21. TownePlace Suites by Marriott
22. Residence Inn Atlanta North Point
23. Residence Inn Alpharetta North Point
24. Renaissance Atlanta Airport
Email The Global Soap Project at soaproject@aol.com. Donations may be mailed to:
Global Soap Project
P.O. Box 94021
Atlanta GA 30318
Contact Info
Contact Name: Quinn Hudson
Company: Global Soap Project
Phone: 678.904.2290
E-mail: soaproject@aol.com
