Making my city beautiful

musicman wrote:

To continue the garbage bin story, this morning I found the bin moved to the center of the street after the garbage truck had come in early and driven away. I moved it back again to the kerb while many of the neighbors, who were just getting into their vehicles to take their kids to school, looked on. Am waiting to see when someone else takes the lead and moves the garbage bin back to the kerb before me.

The majority of your neighbors  wouldn't do it before you, becuase. unfortunately, for them, what you do looks strange and non of your business, or pushing the garbage bin to the curb is a part of your everyday sport practices that they would never do or like to be seen doing.

interesting saga you got going there...i bet they will ignore it

I guess so but we will wait and see how lng it takes before someone will at least ask me why I am so crazy? That should initiate an interesting dialog thereafter?

We have this young Syrian guy who loves to dump his leftover bread, daily, on top of the water pump cage that is located in one corner of the entrance which is just 2 yards away from the garbage bin. I still cant fathom his "wisdom". Maybe cos I am not Syrian? Who knows?

musicman wrote:

We have this young Syrian guy who loves to dump his leftover bread, daily, on top of the water pump cage that is located in one corner of the entrance which is just 2 yards away from the garbage bin. I still cant fathom his "wisdom". Maybe cos I am not Syrian? Who knows?

People are not supposed to throw leftovers of bread or food in the garbage. There are some dedicated boxes in every quarter to collect the bread leftovers, but it seems that some people don't know about those boxes.

While in Syria, you leave the bread leftovers beside the garbage bin and not in it, because the dustman who collects the garbage takes the non-mixed-with-garbage-bread leftovers and sells it to sheep shepherds who feed it to their sheep. But, it seems that your neighbor doesn't understand that he is a a different country and he should know where to get rid of bread leftovers.

I wish we could establish another box for bread and dry food leftovers that could be channeled to feed animals or any other form of agriculture.

Having watched CNN Heroes 2011 I am still toying with the idea of approaching all the local hotel management folks to try and collect the leftover cakes of soap in their rooms to be shipped to some very poor nations where the people cannot afford soap to be hygienic. Collection should not be difficult but shipping it out may need some approvals and financial sponsorship.

it is a great initiative on your part to take up such a task..your actions are louder than words and definitely will not go unnoticed

Have already communicated my thoughts to some friends in top management at the Hilton, Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, Faisaliah, & Red Sea Palace Hotel in Jeddah. Lets see how the response will be and take it from there.

Once we can collect and ship the soap cakes the re processing of making it into bars can easily be done at the destination without much effort or cost.

It is great that you took some action, but how many responsible people would be interested in financially helping.

thats great man...this moment makes me reflect how much we have really done for society...most of us see something wrong and we just complain about it and we dont do anything.
I just want to say good job and from today. let us all make a stand by initiating our own personnel effort that at minimum if we see something wrong we should correct it by our action...Pick up your dirt!!!

You guys are n ot gonna believe this. I just emailed a few of my old classmates from my primary school in Colombo, Sri Lanka, whom I have known since 1953 when we were all just 5 years old with this idea.

two of them were only discussing this project yesterday based on the same CNN Hero's story from Uganda. They have immediately latched on and we are now working full speed to try and see how this may get off the ground. The only financials required will be to ship the collected soap from Saudi to Colombo. I am making overtures to the Cargo Manager at Sri Lankan Airlines and SAUDIA to try and give me free cargo based on the humanitarian aspect of the project. Collection of sopa will be assigned to known friends and family in various locations in Kingdom and we will bear the individual costs of having them all shipped to Riyadh from the various regions in the Kingdom.

This is truly unbelievable and so awesome. If any of you guys have friends in management at any of the Hotels please seek their assistance too. All we want is the throw away soap from the guest rooms.

I saw the same CNN report last night about a guy doing this in Africa.

hey man...thats is really a triumph, real amazing wow...u did it man, u actually pulled it off...that what i call a go getter.
congrats, wish i knew some1 in this industry

But here's the thing:

Give a man a fish, he eats for one day.  Teach a man how to fish and he'll have food for a lifetime.

Is there a way that the soap project can become self-sustaining?  That's what I was thinking last night watching the hero story.

The CNN Hero Live event took place in Dec 2011 and I watched it then and thats how I latched on to the concept.

Yes, the project could be sustainable if there was a way to channel the soaps to the needy villages directly from the Hotels in which case it goes straight from the source to the end user. Whats needed to be managed is to prevent some corrupt middle man butting in to make a buck.

Last nights broadcast must have been a rerun of the actual event. yes, the guy was from Uganda who had gone to study and live in the USA and pounced on the idea when he returned to his home nation and saw so many kids suffering from disease cos of bad hygiene.

heres one response I received from one of my old school mates, ex InterContinental & Hilton Hotels and who is now managing a large chain of Hotels in Shanghai, China:

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Mate,
I saw this on African Voices on CNN. yesterday and I believe this Uganda guy won an award for his project. He intends to achieve 1M blocks of soap in this recycling which is distributed to the poor.

A few suggestions;
-Collection should be from city International hotels at the start. Guest turnover (as they are business guests) is higher than resorts where guests stay for longer periods and hence the used soaps are changed more frequently.

-Collection bins are kept in each hotel and you don't mix up the soaps say from the Hilton and Galadari. Pretty obvious because each hotel has their own brand of soap with a different mild perfume.

- Hilton International has endorsed this project in the US and I am sure the Colombo Hilton should  give you great support.
- Our classmate U.C Jayasinghe would be an ideal guy to head this project........I was impressed with his reclycling work when he was the GM of Habarana (I think ) hotel.   

let me know how your progress,
cheers,
Graham
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