HKU students launch soap recycling scheme to help save young lives
The HKU project is helping charities to improve hygiene in poor Asian countries
Washing hands with soap can halt the spread of diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia, which kill 3.5 million children a year, yet Hong Kong hotels throw away two to three million barely used bars annually.
Students at the University of Hong Kong aim to change that after devising a way to turn hotel waste into lifesaving donations for poverty-stricken families.
They launched a charity organisation, Soap Cycling, at the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel in Wan Chai yesterday, an event attended by a dozen representatives of the hospitality industry.
The students are collecting two to three tonnes a month of surplus soap from 15 hotels, including the Grand Hyatt and Island Shangri-La. More hotels are signing up, and Soap Cycling hopes to have 60 partner hotels by next year.
After less than 12 months in operation, Soap Cycling is already one of the three largest soap recycling and distribution organisations in the world and the first to operate in Asia.
After collection, the soap is sanitised and reprocessed by hand to create new bars. These are given to non-governmental organisations and charities, such as Unicef, which distribute them to underprivileged families and schools across Asia.