This Week - Andrew Campbell, Scout District Commissioner, Northrand District.

 

"I joined the Scout Movement as a Cub in 1988 (giving away my age) at 1st Bedfordview. I went on to obtain my Leaping Wolf, Springbok and BP Awards. I served as Assistant Troop Scouter, Troop Scouter, and Rover Scouter at 1st Bedfordview. I also served as an Assistant District Commission, Member of the Support Team for Rovers. My primary role at present is District Commissioner for the Northrand District in the Gauteng Scout Region. I have attended 3 World Scout Jamborees and 1 World Rover Moot. "

Here is Andrew with the scouts from the District having just received their Green & Gold Scarves for the World Jamboree.

In real life Andrew is an advocate.

Last Week

It was our first Business Meeting of the new Rotary Year.  The most important discussion was on fundraising and the need to start on the organisation of Burns Night where we had received strong support from the Scottish Constitution of Freemasons and the formation of a committee to handle the project.

The other important discussion was to look at our existing beneficiaries and what changes we should make towards support in the coming year as expenses increase and a concern about our fundraising ability.

Saturday saw the Induction of Lauwrence Vosloo as our President for 2025/26.  Maria Angelica Salomao and PDG George Senosha present.  

President Andrew Paschalides presented Beverley Smith with a Paul Harris Fellowship for all her help to the club over the years.

Then, after his report, he was able to unchain himself by inducting Lauwrence Vosloo as President.

Jodie Lowe, the club's first Rotary Exchange Student from Australia in 1990, was also present.

Next Week

Kimmel of Kumkani Clothing has been invited back following the internet disaster of some weeks ago.

International - Cambodia

What Happens to Leftover Hotel Soap?

Instead of letting hygiene products go to the landfill, several organisations collect and recycle them, then give them to those in need.

By: Jennifer Cole

A little over 10 years ago, while teaching English in northern Cambodia, Samir Lakhani had a soap epiphany. “I saw a village mother bathing her newborn child
, but unfortunately, she was scrubbing him with laundry powder, which can be quite harmful to the skin.” It was all the mother had to use. 

According to UNICEF, 2.3 billion people around the world do not have hand washing facilities with running water and soap available at home. This has consequences. It’s estimated that the simple act of using soap to wash hands, for example, can prevent up to one million deaths and can reduce the risk of respiratory illnesses by up to 21 percent in both children and adults.

What Lakhani witnessed in Cambodia changed his life. “Ever since I have wanted to work in soap and to connect people with proper soap,” he says. He came up with a smart but simple idea: rescue used soap from hotel rubbish bins and deliver it to communities where it could save lives.

Hotels have stringent hygiene protocols that require toiletries, regardless of whether they’ve been opened or used, to be thrown out at the end of a guest’s stay. It’s estimated that globally, five million hotel soap bars are tossed every day. Ending up in the landfill, they join a melee of other products emitting harmful greenhouse gases, such as methane, into the atmosphere. Many of the oils used in the manufacture of soap are biodegradable, but when added to a compacted pile of trash and deprived of air, they do not decay quickly. Some soaps also contain dyes or phosphates that are not naturally decomposable.

In 2014, Lakhani founded Eco-Soap Bank, which has since diverted over 14 million pounds of soap from landfills around the world. In its early years, Eco-Soap built a global network of more than 1,000 hotels to intercept this waste. Then came the pandemic, and many of those hotels shut down as people stopped travelling. “We needed to find another source of soap to recycle, and we began to reach out to soap factories,” Lakhani says. “We uncovered a dirty truth.” Annually, about a quarter-billion bars of soap go directly into landfills because of small manufacturing or aesthetic defects that make them non saleable. 

Rescuing and recycling the entirety of this soap factory waste stream could prevent the emission of approximately 44 million tons of CO2e and save over 29 million gallons of water per year, according to research conducted by Eco-Soap Bank.  

Eco-Soap is not alone in its mission to rescue soap and get to those who need it the most. In Australia, the nonprofit organisation Soap Aid collects, sorts, cleans and reprocesses soap from accommodations across Australia and New Zealand into fresh, hygienic soap bars. These soap bars are then redistributed to communities in need throughout the southern continent and the world. Since its inception in 2011, the organisation has kept over 380 metric tons of soap out of landfills.

When discarded soap arrives at the organisation's recycling facility in Melbourne, it’s sorted, any packaging is removed, and it’s fed into a hopper that sends it through recycling machines that grind it into small noodle shapes.

“These noodles are heated, blended and reformed into new bars,” explains Laura O’Leary, partnership engagement office.

In Canada, Soap for Hope, based in Victoria, British Columbia, also upcycles soap but uses less rigorous methods. “Bacteria doesn’t grow on soap,” notes the organisation's founder, C. Anne McIntyre. The soap bars received by Soap for Hope are hand-scraped by the organisation's battalion of volunteers, who also sort and re purpose other materials like old hotel linens and amalgamate new bottles of shampoos and conditioners from half-used ones rescued from hotels throughout British Columbia and Alberta.

As with Lakhani, it all started when McIntyre had her soap epiphany in 2015.

“I used to do international aid and we were sending soap overseas with disaster kits, and [it] just seemed very obvious that people needed that,” she says. However, the liquid amenities such a shampoo sometimes received with the donations of soap could not be sent overseas. McIntrye took it upon herself to take those products to shelters in Victoria. “They were ecstatic to receive it,” she recalls. This joy at receiving a simple bottle of shampoo made her realise that her own community also lacked access to hygiene products. She decided to do something about it. Flash-forward to 2025, and McIntyre has built partnerships with regional hotel chains such as the Fairmont and Marriott, and the nonprofit provides hygiene products to over 500 community service organisations in British Columbia and Alberta.

n 2024, the British Columbia-based hotel brands Hotel Zed and Accent Inns worked with Soap for Hope to divert nearly 6,500 pounds of waste from landfills, according to Peter Dohan, manager of operations at Hotel Zed and Accent Inns. 

In Vancouver, Mom2Mom, a nonprofit service organisation supporting low-income families, receives donations of toiletries from Soap for Hope. According to Caitlen Creaney, food program and participant engagement coordinator, mothers will forgo things such as scented body wash or skin care for themselves to stretch the budget and make sure their children have what they need. This, though, can have dire consequences.

In January 2025, Soap for Hope sponsored Canada’s first Hygiene Poverty Survey. Polling their database of service organisations in British Columbia and Alberta, almost 98 percent of respondents reported that their clients experienced negative mental health outcomes, including stress, anxiety and depression, due to hygiene inequity. In addition to basic hygiene products like soap, Soap for Hope also offers body washes and skin care products. Many are collected from hotels, and others from community drives in which bins are set up in local malls and the general public is invited to drop off donations of unused or half-used hygiene products. According to McIntyre, receiving body wash, moisturiser or even shaving lotion goes a long way in helping to restore an individual’s sense of dignity, health and self-confidence.