MIDLAND, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--More than one million people are killed by water, sanitation and hygiene-related disease each year.1 One of the most effective and affordable ways to prevent the transmission of disease is through handwashing with soap. This is why Dow Home & Personal Care – a business unit of DowDuPont Materials Science Division – has made it a priority to promote healthy handwashing with its innovations and support of Global Handwashing Day, Oct. 15.
Global Handwashing Day was established to educate consumers on the importance of handwashing with soap. For less than a minute per wash, handwashing can help people around the world live a healthier life. Dow participates in the event to share its commitment to provide cost-effective solutions to make handwashing more accessible, last longer and feel better on skin.
“Although it may seem like a simple solution, many people don’t realize the important and positive health impact of soap,” said Eunice Heath, environment, health, safety & sustainability (EHS&S) global director for Dow Consumer Solutions, which includes Dow Home & Personal Care. “Our hand soap solutions are developed to use less water and resources, meet local water conditions and provide accessibility to more people in regions around the globe.”
Dow’s ingredients that promote handwashing and drive positive change, include:
- POLYOX™ Water Soluble Polymers: create an enhanced soap formulation that lasts longer and provides better value with improved sensory feel. Unilever used POLYOX Water Soluble Polymers to improve its Lifebuoy soap and provide an affordable hygiene solution to economically challenged regions.
- ACULYN™ Rheology Modifiers: suspend active ingredients and bubbles to adjust flow properties, enhance texture and stabilize, even at low pH values. It enables milder cleansers and thickens body wash formulations. When combined with suspended particles ACULYN Rheology Modifiers deliver multi-functional cleansing products with specialized beauty benefits, such as moisturizing, exfoliating or anti-aging.
Dow is a strategic partner with the Global Handwashing Partnership and facilitates global events to educate and promote proper handwashing practices. To see if an event is taking place in your community, visit the Global Handwashing Partnership’s interactive map. Through Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals to engage employees for impact and commitment to global citizenship, the company is partnering with organizations in community-based efforts to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times, including:
- In Singapore, DowCorps volunteers and employees of one of the business’ customers will teach local children in Singapore how to effectively reduce the spread of germs and disease through proper handwashing during an event on Oct. 30, 2017.
- In Ghana and Kenya, Dow and community partner Global Communities are holding local events to educate children on proper handwashing techniques, as well as procure/install/repair handwashing stations in schools. Up to 2,000 residents will be positively impacted by these activities.
“By partnering with local organizations and our customers on local education and community handwashing initiatives, we can advance the well-being and health of society,” said Rob Vallentine, director of Global Citizenship for Dow and president of The Dow Chemical Company Foundation. “Global Handwashing Day is an opportunity for us to engage our employees, our expertise and our science as a bridge to address global challenges and develop community solutions.”
To learn more about Dow Home & Personal Care’s technologies that encourage healthy handwashing, please visit cleanhands.dow.com and follow @DowHomePersonal.
About Dow Home and Personal Care Solutions
Through its Home and Personal Care business, part of the Dow Consumer Solutions Portfolio, Dow offers unique innovations that empower brand owners around the world to create products with exceptional performance and exciting new benefits consumers can see and feel. Our expansive portfolio serves a wide range of applications across home and personal care markets from skin and hair care to fabric care and beyond. Our novel solutions help enable products that are unique and memorable, and meet the growing demands of today’s consumers. We continue to bring forward innovative technologies and formulation solutions that differentiate our customers’ products, enhance the consumer experience and sustain the environment. With business centers, research and development (R&D), manufacturing plants and customer applications centers around the globe, Dow has the expertise and foundation to foster global and local innovations.
Please visit hips.dow.com and www.dowcorning.com/personal for more information.
About DowDuPont Materials Science Division
DowDuPont Materials Science, a business division of DowDuPont (NYSE: DWDP), combines more than 200 years of science and technology knowledge to passionately develop what is essential to human progress. The division drives innovation that extracts value from the strongest and broadest chemistry and polymers toolkit in the industry to help address many of the world's most challenging problems. DowDuPont Materials Science’s integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials and plastics businesses deliver a broad range of differentiated technology-based products and solutions for customers in high-growth end-markets such as packaging, transportation, infrastructure, and consumer care. DowDuPont intends to separate the Materials Science division into an independent, publicly traded company. More information can be found at www.dow-dupont.com.
1 Water.org, Water Crisis
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