First corporate partner to join Clean the World's efforts to promote a global hygiene revolution with guest room soaps and bottled amenities from a potential list of 500 Starwood hotels in North America may be recycled for worldwide distribution to stop the spread of preventable diseases.

Starwood and Clean the World, a social enterprise committed to saving lives and protecting our planet, today announced a corporate agreement to collect and recycle hotel soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels to help fight the global spread of preventable diseases. An estimated 1.6 million pounds of hotel soap may be recycled each year through this partnership.

The agreement, potentially involving 500 Starwood hotels in North America, is the first corporate agreement for Clean the World, which now has hospitality partnerships in place with more than 1,000hotel properties around the globe. Starwood brands include St. Regis(R), The Luxury Collection(R), W(R), Westin(R), Le Méridien(R), Sheraton(R), Four Points(R) by Sheraton, Aloft(R), and Element SM.

The Earth Day announcement symbolizes Starwood's commitment to environmental stability, the reduction of hotel waste, and the benefits of recycling an abundance of hotel soaps and bottled amenities (shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels) as hygiene products to benefit children and families in need. Through this agreement with Clean the World, and by working through its 501 (c) (3) charitable arm, Clean the World Foundation, Starwood will help turn trash into treasure to save lives and improve the global environment.

Clean the World is the largest global recycler of hotel amenities and, in just two years of operation, has distributed more than 8 million bars of soap to children and families in the United States and more than 40 countries worldwide, including Haiti, Japan, Zimbabwe, Uganda, India, Honduras, Mexico and Albania.

Each day, 9,000 children around the world die from diseases such as acute respiratory illness and diarrheal diseases that can be prevented by washing with bar soap. Clean the World Foundation has a mission to put soap in the hands of people who need it most -- to improve hygiene and sanitation conditions , to lessen the impact of disease, and to promote better hygiene and living conditions worldwide.

"Our North American properties represent more than 176,000 rooms, each of which offer the highest quality soaps and bottled amenities to our guests on a daily basis," says Denise Coll, president of Starwood Hotels in North America. "This partnership amplifies our commitment to corporate social responsibility, and it also should make every member of our Starwood family feel better about the role they play each day in caring for our Earth and the people who inhabit it."

Clean the World has partnered with more than 1,000 hotel properties in North America to provide soaps and bottled amenities to people in need. While doing so, the organization has also fulfilled a valuable environmental mission by diverting an estimated 550 tons of hotel waste from polluting landfills in the United States and Canada.

"A partnership with Starwood brings tremendous resources and opportunity to help advance our global hygiene revolution," says Shawn Seipler, executive director of Clean the World. "With hotel properties throughout North America, Starwood will be able to provide an estimated 1.6 million pounds of soap annually to children and families who are desperately in need of better access to hygiene products. Additionally, 2.8 million pounds of Starwood hotel waste may be diverted from landfills each year with the help of Clean the World. It's this type of hotel partnership - a commitment from an organization with significant scale - that will ultimately help save millions of lives."

Starwood itself has made history with industry-leading green initiatives. In 2008, the company launched Element, Starwood's green trailblazer and the first major hotel brand to mandate that all properties pursue the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification for high-performance buildings. Across its entire portfolio of brands, Starwood now leads with 15 LEED-certified buildings. And in 2010, the company installed electric-vehicle charging stations at all nine Element hotels across North America. Also in 2010, Starwood set targets to reduce energy and water consumption at all of its owned, managed, and franchised properties by 2020.