image retrieved from worldvisionreport.org
How does the prospect of going into hotels and recycling those used bars of soap and half-empty, little bottles of shampoo strike you?
The images evoked might naturally make one squeamish.
But an article by The Los Angeles Times writer Susan Carpenter does a good job at not taking the bait by making the topic overly sensational.
Exploiting the unease and other mixed feelings that readers must initially have about reusing old toiletries would’ve been an easy way to inflate readership, but would have undermined the importance of Laguna Beach becoming the first US city to make all its hotels join in the recycling program.
Carpenter could have exercised graphic and verbose writing, but instead employs a reserved style that allows the implications of reducing hotel waste resonate.
Consider this point by Carpenter, “In an average year, with an estimated 75% occupancy rate, Laguna Beach hotels generate 336,000 bars of soap and a slightly lesser number of shampoo, conditioner, bath gel and lotion bottles, all of which were previously thrown in the trash.”
All of a sudden, gross images dissipate and we are made aware of a wasteful problem being corrected. That is the strength of this article.
Carpenter also does a good job of widening her scope beyond that of Laguna Beach. She cites the Clean the World non-profit that has tasked itself with recruiting prominent hotels to engage in this recycling program.
image retrieved from cleantheworld.org
She counters our fears of simply taking bars of soap from the garbage and handing it to someone else to use, “The bars of soap are cleaned of hair and paper, sterilized, ground into pellets and pressed into new bars of soap that are distributed to non-governmental organizations in 45 countries that do not have ready access to soap.”
The impetus of the recycling is not just to save money, or take weight off landfills, but is also to make a difference in foreign communities where poor hygiene leads to health crises.
According to a source in the article, Clean the World co-founder Shawn Seipler, “The main killers of children in less-developed parts of the world are pneumonia and diarrhea -- diseases that could be reduced as much as 60% with simple hand-washing.”
Now the idea of saving those soaps and shampoos from our hotel rooms doesn’t seem so skin-crawling.
The only fault that could possibly be lodged against the article is that the implication of helping the quality of these low-economic communities is not eluded to until very late in the article. By the last couple of paragraphs many people may have stopped reading and thus are not aware of this important benefit.
image retrieved from cleantheworld.org
Also, perhaps Carpenter could have gone into more detail about which countries will be the recipients of this program. Clean the World’s website shows that the recycled products make it countires all over the world, such as Haiti, India, and Kenya to name a few.
Regardless of these minor qualms, Carpenter’s article is a very good example of environmental and recycling reporting that lends credibility to environmental causes.
But perhaps her best stroke was the way she avoided gimmicky ways of nabbing readers, by sensationalizing and playing to our initial reservations.
To better understand what Carpenter accomplished, it may be useful to see an article that does commit these fouls. Here’s an AP article by Arthur Max about crematoria in the Netherlands that recycle implants and prosthetics of the deceased.
I loved this article topic. This summer, I took an Anthropology class that really impacted the way I thought about this exact topic. We discussed how an entire village could be spared from deadly diseases if they had a simple bar of soap, something we take for granted every time we stay at a hotel and wash our hands once. I was so affected by this news that I could not figure out why we didn't already recycle soap and take that soap to those countries where it is the difference between life and death. So when I read this post, I was so happy to hear that there is in fact an entire organization dedicated to this cause. Thank you for relieving my stress. Aside from my personal in the topic, I thought you did a great job of providing links that were useful. Perhaps more research on your part aside from the Carpenter article would be helpful. I liked that you mentioned she didn't mention the global health problem until later in the article, but I think you could have gone a bit further checking on who the recipients would be and other things that the organization has done. Also you mention Arthur Max, but you didn't talk about him. I feel you could add another paragraph about him and perhaps another one about how recycling our products helps people in other countries lead better lives. Other than that really nice job and great topic! I think everyone should read this post and her article.
ReplyDeleteWell I have to share that I was unaware of this program in Laguna Beach, and when I was there for a wedding this fall I actually brought all my leftover soaps home to donate to a shelter in order to keep them out of the trash! Its great to know that programs like this exist.
ReplyDeleteconsidering the article, I am surprised and likewise pleased to hear that Carpenter avoided the far to easy route of hypersensationlized news. I like that the article tells not only where the soap goes and to what purpose it serves but I think that part of Carpenter's hook was the intrigue of how its done. I would have just imagined the soap being passed along as im sure it was to the homeless shelter (I do think they still clean it though). Its almost like that show "how stuff works" where they deconstruct the process of something one wouldnt normally consider, like a golf ball, or the regeneration of bars of soap!
I noticed that alot of the pieces i read for this project would slip information I considered to be pertinent to the inherent discussion at the very end of the article, like the author did here with the information about the people that recieve the aid. I think that it must be a result of the editing and trying to keep that hook tugging. The appeal of how it works and the thought of Fancy hotels in southern California is unfortuantely more appealing to the average person then info about who the project benefits. Perhaps articles like this one would do more good if they challeneged this paradigm. --Rachel Archibold