Recycling Hotel Soap to Save Lives
COOPER: So here's something you probably never thought about. When you visit a hotel there's a brand-new bar of soap in the bathroom, right? Well, do you ever wonder what happens to it after you check out? Odds are it goes straight to the dumpster. This week's CNN hero collects tons of them, then recycles them to literally save lives. Take a look.</s>DERRECK KAYONGO, COMMUNITY CRUSADER: A child of war can be simply described as a kid caught between a rock and a hard place. It's finding all your pieces and trying to put them back together. I do have something in common with these kids. You wake up every morning thinking we just want to survive. Sanitation isn't a priority. We have about two million kids that die of sanitation issues mainly because they don't wash their hands. I am Derreck Kayongo. I'm a former a refugee and now I help people fight disease with sanitation. Do you have some soap for me?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes over here.</s>KAYONGO: This is great. The issue is not the availability of soap but the issue is cost. Can they afford it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Housekeeping.</s>KAYONGO: Eight hundred million bars of soap for the hotel is thrown away in the U.S. alone every year. We're able to get a lot of soap which we can process and make a brand new soap part of it. We clean it, melt it and then cut it into fine bars. We box it and ship it.</s>CHILDREN: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome Derreck.</s>KAYONGO: Being here in Kenya at this orphanage is coming full circle but with good news. It's great for the children to have the bars of soap but also to use it so they can fight off diseases. Those are clean. That's very good. One of the things I have learned from the kids is a sense of resilience. To know that they have the sense of hope and joy is remarkable. Do I feel like I'm having an impact on them? Yes, I think so.</s>COOPER: Such a simple idea, saving lives, Derreck and his volunteers have distributed more than 100,000 bars of soap to nine countries for free. Remember all this year's CNN Heroes are chosen from people that you tell us about. So if you want to nominate someone you know who's making a big difference in your community go to cnnheroes.com. We'll be right back.