Lebanon-based Hammoud Hospital, announced the launch of Eco-Soap Bank Lebanon in collaboration with Arc en Ciel, Musée du Savon-Audi foundation, Samir Lakhani, founder of Eco-Soap Bank, and 25 hotels across Lebanon.

This project aims to reduce the hotels wastes, create new opportunities for unemployed women and provide the underprivileged families with recycled soaps.

The Eco-Soap Bank collects used soap bars from hotels and guesthouses.The collected soap bars are then sanitized and processed into new ones and are donated to hospitals, clinics, schools, orphanages, and village communities afterwards. Donations are paired with hand washing training to ensure communities remain safe from preventable illnesses.

“After our CNN Heroes Award, I was contacted by Hammoud Hospital to visit and give some lectures with the Rotary Presidential Conference hosted in Beirut. We began to realize that an Eco-Soap Bank hotel soap recycling project would be relevant to Beirut as well and began collaborating to launch the initiative with hotels,” Lakhani told HN.

The hotels part of the initiative are: Lancaster Tamar, Lancaster Plaza, Lancaster Suites, Lancaster Hotel, Citea, Movenpick, Four Points, Four Seasons, Crowne Plaza, Le Bristol, The Smallville, Le Gray, Sofitel, Ramada, Ramada Plaza, Riviera, Raouche Arjaan by Rotana, Gefinor, Coral Beach, Saifi Suites, Kempinski Summerland, Le Royal, Royal Tulip, Coral Beirut, and Miramar.

“This program benefits hotels greatly – in that they can reduce their waste, improve their sustainability, provide jobs to women, and provide soap to the community to improve health and reduce disease. This project will help them save on waste removal costs as well and improve employee morale,” he explained. He added: “People will receive ongoing hygiene supplies along with hygiene education to teach them how to prevent disease and keep themselves happy. Disadvantaged women will receive employment that they were struggling to find elsewhere.”

This project is also cost-effective for hotels. According to Lakhani, the average-sized hotel generates about 2,700 kgs in soap waste per year. The global hotel industry discards about five million bars of soap per day. “That’s two billion bars of soap per year! Soap-recycling is a perfect way to reduce waste, improve hotel’s sustainability, and show their customers their dedication to the planet and local people,” he said.

Eco-Soap Bank is poised to start new initiatives with hotels who are interested in taking on this program. They may consult www.ecosoapbank.org to explore partnerships.

“We intend to recycle more hotel soap – and are currently in 10 countries operating 17 soap-recycling branches. Our opportunity is available to any interested hotel and we work to promote their hotel for their participation. We are also poised to open new initiatives across the Middle East to serve the needs of hotels who are interested in recycling their soap, reducing waste, and providing soap to the community.”