Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

When you visit a hotel, do you ever wonder what happens to the small piece of soap you leave behind? The average hotel generates somewhere from three to six tons of solid soap waste per year. What if that soap could be diverted from the landfill and used to lift people out of extreme poverty and prevent sex trafficking? Well, that’s what Stefan Phang of Sealed Air’s Soap for Hope program is doing. Soap for Hope was piloted in Cambodia in October, 2013. By September 2015, they have partnered with 300 hotel properties in 19 countries. They have diverted 630 tons of solid soap waste from landfills. They converted this waste into 5.3 million bars of soap, which were given to 450,000 people. In the process, they have raised the livelihood of 600 people who were previously in extreme poverty. And, as a result, they have reduced the incidence of sex trafficking of children. Soap for Hope takes the soap waste from hotels, converts them into new soap products, and distributes the upcycled soaps to people who currently