Starwood in Global Clean-Up

Roderick Eime

What does any hotel do with the hundreds, often thousands, of barely used soaps and amenities?

In Starwood’s 176,000 North American rooms, the landfill waste amounts to over 500 tonnes annually just from amenities alone.

Enter the Clean the World Foundation, a “social enterprise committed to saving lives and protecting our planet. It offers sustainable, socially responsible, and charitable programs and services to the international hospitality community.”

Lofty ideals certainly, but the Foundation claims 9000 children die every day from diseases that could be prevented by basic hygiene and hand-washing. As such, they are gathering otherwise waste soap bars and recycling them into new sterilised bars for re-distribution to underprivileged and disaster-struck communities like those in Haiti, Japan, Zimbabwe, Uganda, India, Honduras, Mexico and Albania.

In the first fully corporate agreement for Clean the World, it gains access to potentially 500 Starwood hotels in North America operating under such brands as St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Four Points® by Sheraton, Aloft®, and Element SM.

“Our North American properties represent more than 176,000 rooms, each of which offer the highest quality soaps and bottled amenities to our guests on a daily basis,” says Denise Coll, president of Starwood Hotels in North America. “This partnership amplifies our commitment to corporate social responsibility, and it also should make every member of our Starwood family feel better about the role they play each day in caring for our Earth and the people who inhabit it.”

Shawn Seipler, executive director of Clean the World says, “With hotel properties throughout North America, Starwood will be able to provide an estimated 1.6 million pounds (725 tonnes) of soap annually to children and families who are desperately in need of better access to hygiene products.”

The foundation already collects soaps and waste from 900 North American properties including: Joie de Vivre (34 properties), Sage Hospitality (53) and Hersha Hotels (70). Other participating brands include Preferred, Mandarin Oriental and Harrahs.

For more information on the Clean the World Foundation, see www.cleantheworld.org