Sealed Air’s CSR program ‘Soap For Hope’ impacts 15,000 lives

The initiative, launched across 62 cities and 27 countries in India, namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad are the key markets amongst other cities. The initiative is a nation-wide program, launched a year back to tackle the problem of wastage of soaps in hotels 

India CSR News Network

MUMBAI: As a part of its shared value initiative, Sealed Air Corporation – a Fortune 500 company, engaged in the business of food packaging and food safety, cleaning and hygiene solution announced that their ‘Soap For Hope initiative’ which they had launched in India in 2016, has had a huge impact on lives of people, touching 15,000 lives so far. The initiative was launched last year with the purpose of recycling the used soap from hotels, processing them into new bars of soap and distributing the same to the poor.

Sealed Air worked with many prominent hotels like Accor Group, Taj group of hotels, Ramada, Hilton, Intercontinental, Radisson, ITC, IHG Group, Lalit, Shangri-La etc on this initiative and reached a landmark figure.

Sealed Air also works closely with Doctors for You, an NGO from Mumbai to work on the initiative and amplify its reach.

This initiative, which was launched across 62 cities and 27 countries partnering with more than 250 hotels, has managed to touch more than 15,000 lives in India. It has succeeded to collect more than 4260 tons of soap and 3805 tons of soap has been recycled and converted into soap bars. That’s almost 50745 bars of newly processed soaps.

Commenting on achieving this milestone, Himanshu Jain, VP and MD, Indian Subcontinent and South East Asia, Sealed Air said “We are quite ecstatic that this initiative has reached such a huge milestone. Soap for Hope is a huge initiative which creates value and helps reducing wastage of a basic resource such as soap. This initiative would not have been so successful without the active participation of all the parties that have played an active role in making this possible, our customers, our Hotel partners, NGOs, the local communities and our employees. We plan on going strong. We aim to create a difference and impact a million lives by 2020.”

“Recycling used hotel soap is not a new idea; however, the costs are usually high due to the collection, shipment, a centralised reprocessing plant, and redistribution. Through an innovative but simple cold-press method that is easy to operate, Soap for Hope decentralises and brings the initiative to communities that are located near the partner hotels,” he further added.

Dr Rajat Jain, Vice President, Doctors for You, who has been an active part of the initiative since its inception, reflected that “We are happy that the initiative has received an overwhelming response nationally. In a country like India where hygiene is often overlooked, an initiative like this will go a long way to educate people and bridge the basic hygiene gap. We look forward to working with Sealed Air and all our Hospitality partners to reach out to more cities and villages and touch many more lives in the future.”

Soap for Hope also demonstrates the massive potential for hotels and other businesses to work with partners such as Sealed Air to deliver shared value through low-cost projects with an excellent return on investment that builds business and strengthens relationships.

Earlier this year, Doctors For You and the Centre for Peace-Building through Community Empowerment launched school-led WASH (Water Sanitation & Hygiene) initiatives in Bihar, one of the most impoverished states in India. Through this project, the organisations will focus on assisting with behavioural change and better hygiene habits for more than 4,000 students in 21 schools

The method of recycling

Soap for Hope is based on a simple process that requires no running water or electricity. Once the used soap are collected from hotels, Sealed Air transports the used soap to the local community and teaches the local people to recycle/process soap using an innovative cold-press method with simple but uniquely customised equipment. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes and once the used soap is recycled into fresh bars of soap, the soap will be distributed to communities which lack access to soap or sanitation. Through this process, the local people, (especially those who need a small income to supplement their livelihood) learn a new skill in recycling soap, and communities have free access to soap. Sealed Air provides all the equipment including the tools and the soap press machine, as well as disinfectant required for re-processing soap.