Colombo City Tourist Hotel Association partners Diversey to activate ‘Linens for Life’

The Colombo City Tourist Hotels Association (CCTHA) announced yesterday it has partnered with cleaning and hygiene products supplier Diversey to collect discarded hotel linen that will be upcycled into reusable face masks. 

These masks will have a tri-fold impact—it will prevent reusable linen from being sent to landfills, provide a source income and livelihood, and aid with immediate relief efforts with reusable masks for the community. Discarded linen will be collected by the hotel’s housekeeping teams, and channelled to local non-governmental organisation Embodhi for upcycling.

Amongst the members of the CCTHA, the following hotels have donated generously towards the cause: Hilton Colombo Residences, Hilton Colombo, Shangri-La Colombo, Mount Lavinia hotel, and OZO Hotels Sri Lanka. 

Linens for Life has a simple but powerful objective: to empower people impacted by disasters with support from Diversey and its hotel partners. With this program, families can grow their income by converting linens discarded by hotels into new and useful items that they can sell. 

At the same time, hotels can recycle their unwanted linen in a way that makes a real difference. These masks can be donated back to the partners who will, in turn, redistribute it to low-income families within their community. This also provides women to resell the masks whereby gaining a source of income for economic empowerment. Communities receive basic training on how to sew and use sewing machines donated by Diversey. 

According to Diversey, every year, a typical 400-room hotel generates about two to three metric tons of discarded linen– bed sheets, pillowcases, towels, table cloths, employee uniforms, and the like which will undergo thorough cleaning before they are made into reusable masks.

“This Linens for Life face masks program is a sterling example of how Diversey joins the global community in the fight against Covid-19, together with our customer hotels and partner NGOs, in supporting those communities,” says Diversey’s Global Leader for Creating Shared Value Stefan Phang.

As of April 2020, there are currently five Linens for Life face mask projects in eight cities across Asia and Europe. Eleven hotels are currently partnered with Diversey who have produced more than 10,000 masks to be distributed within COVID-19 affected areas and hospitals.

“Sustainability is a key driver for the Colombo City Hotels Association. Our objective is to provide hotels best practices in being more sustainable in our operations. We are proud to partner with Diversey for this milestone collaboration, where there is both an opportunity as well as a responsibility,” said General Manager of Hilton Colombo Residences and CCTHA Head of the Sustainability Committee Linda Giebing.

The masks will be produced by the Embodhi Foundation, a local non-governmental organisation that connects women into jobs and industry while providing a plethora of benefits such as education, financial and social inclusion, and vocational training.