Meeting professionals will have a special opportunity to experience a corporate social responsibility activity that the hospitality industry supports at the Eighth Annual Pharmaceutical Meeting Management Forum taking place later this month in Orlando. At the Clean the World Recycling Operations Center, they will be able to clean, box, and bottle unused soap and other leftover amenities gathered from hotels around the country, diverting tons of waste from landfills. Those recycled products will then be sent to countries around the world to improve sanitation, helping to prevent the spread of hygiene-related diseases, and therefore saving lives.
Clean the World is a non-profit organization based in Orlando. It recently opened a new soap recycling center in Las Vegas, thanks to donations from Caesars Foundation, adding to its facilities in Vancouver, Toronto, and Orlando.
The CSR event takes place Sunday morning, March 25, before the official opening of the Pharma Forum. On the last day of the conference, Wednesday morning, March 28, Clean the World Executive Director Shawn Seipler will join two other Orlando-based non-profit organization executives to discuss how meeting managers are creatively incorporating CSR projects into their events. Clean the World encourages groups to implement the soap recycling program as part of their meeting contracts with participating hotels. Seipler notes that when meeting planners sign up to participate, soap from the entire hotel gets recycled, not just from the room block.
The Pharma Forum, co-organized by Medical Meetings and CBI, takes place March 25–28 at the Marriott Orlando World Center. The Clean the World event is co-sponsored by Gaylord Hotels and Seaworld. For more information about the CSR event, e-mail Maureen Morelli.