Clean Sl8 soap company wins award

Recent graduate Sebastian Huempfer (2008, PPE) has been recognised by the Prime Minister's Office with a Points of Light award for his social enterprise Clean Sl8 (pronounced "Clean Slate").

The company was formed to recycle lightly used soap from hotels to create new bars and is staffed by volunteers. The process involves cleaning the soap by removing the outer layer from the bars, sanitising it under UV light, grinding it into powder, pressing the power into bars, and repackaging.

So far 500 bars of soap have been produced and the work is currently staffed by members of the Ley Community, near Oxford, which helps former offenders and homeless people overcome alcohol and drug abuse and re-enter the workforce.

New bars have been donated back to the Ley Community, but with production rapidly increasing Sebastian is now exploring opportunities to supply charities working in disaster relief around the world. With seven local Oxford hotels already contributing raw materials, more are now being sought.

Sebastian said "It's fantastic to get this kind of recognition for the work that all our volunteers have done. Building a social enterprise has been an incredibly challenging and rewarding experience and all of us at Clean Sl8 hope that this award will help us convince even more hotels to join the recycling scheme."

The daily Points of Light award recognises outstanding individual volunteers - people who are making a change in their community. Winners are found by a network of volunteers, including National Citizen Service graduates and members of the& Step up to Serve coalition. However, if members of the public would like to make a nomination they can write to the Prime Minister.