InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has formed a new partnership with Clean the World to recycle partially-used soaps and bottled amenities from hotel guest rooms.
The bathroom amenities will then be distributed to communities with limited access to hygiene products. IHG plans to add 3,274 properties in the US and Canada, representing 407,840 rooms, to Clean the World’s growing list of more than 1,400 hospitality partners. Nearly 70 IHG properties are already involved with Clean the World, and have helped collect 268,517 soap bars and divert more than 40.5 tons of hotel waste from local landfills.
“Our hotel owners and guests have made eco-awareness a priority in their lives, and we welcome that kind of social responsibility in all that we do and offer throughout our brand portfolio. This partnership is a great opportunity to leverage our scale to both reduce the impact on the environment and provide a benefit for global communities,” said Paul Snyder, IHG’s Vice President of Corporate Responsibility.
Clean the World recently achieved a milestone of having distributed more than 10 million soap bars in just three years. The soaps are often packaged as part of sustainable hygiene kits, which include recycled bottled amenities and other items collected from hotels. Hygiene kits have been sent to communities in the Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Nicaragua and Sierra Leone.
