CHENNAI : Soap, an essential part of our hygiene, can be found in almost every bathroom in the world. Hotel bathrooms have the most inviting little bars of glycerine. Once used, many of us re-wrap and put it in our bags, some of us even ask for more to add to our travel kits, but most of us leave them after one use. “In two weeks, we have gathered four gunny bags full of used soaps from two hotels,” says Hafiz Khan, founder, Communitree.
One used bar cannot be used by another guest and is often discarded. What do we do with all that wasted soap? Hafiz and his band of green warriors have come up with the idea to collect discarded soaps from hotels, re-sanitise them, and distribute them among those in need, “We plan to give them to sanitary workers, government hospitals, public bathrooms and rag pickers,” he adds.
This initiative aims to begin the distribution of soaps in the first week of January, “We want to start the year with a ‘clean’ slate’,” quips Hafiz. The soaps will be collected, then first scraped manually. They will then be tossed in a rotating metal barrel which will remove the topmost layer of the soap. Along with soaps, he is also planning to launch a ‘Gift a Home’ campaign where the team will install little cardboard houses in areas along the East Coast Road like Kottivakkam, Injambakkam and Neelankarai, and in Nanganallur.
“The idea is to provide a home to sparrows and eventually attract more of them to the city as well,” adds Hafiz. Each house will be painted by children residing in the aforementioned areas and will be filled with hay to accommodate the sparrows. “We have observed that squirrels also like to reside in the houses which is like helping both species with one design,” he says.
Launched in August 2018, Communitree has been responsible for planting and maintaining close to three lakh trees ever since. “It takes over 100 years to build a forest naturally. We use a method where we plant saplings one foot apart from each other, to speed up the process. The plants compete for sunlight and grow taller much faster.
We’ve seen canopies grow in a span of four to five months in a 20 X 20 plot with 400 trees,” says Hafiz. A trainer by profession, Hafiz has educated them about environmental issues and how to combat them, “We have also had a little journalist programme where we have taught over 200 children how to research and write an article, how to use social media to compile information, and how to create podcasts. This is a part of multiple initiatives we have taken up,” he says.