H.B. Fuller in Honduras Recap & Comments

During the mid-80’s, Honduras was facing critical social/economic issues that were directly affecting the lives of children. Many of the children between the ages of 5~12 in the Nation’s capital were addicted to sniffing glue to “seek escape from the squalor and misery of their daily existence”. This practice created a hallucinogenic effect that helped the children cove with their reality but with fatal effect in the child’s body (causes burns, carcinogen, destructs tissue, nausea, asthma, death).

One of the main providers of glue in Honduras is H.B. Fuller, which produces the Resistol brand. Resistol is so commonly used contact cement glue readily accessible in household good stores. The problem that H.B Fuller faces is that since, this is the commonly used glue, children are buying it to sniff it and society have linked the brand name with the addiction & now use the term “Resistolero” to refer to all street children. Now, H.B. Fuller seems like the solely responsible agent for the glue addiction.
Aside from damaging their company’s reputation, they had to be socially responsible & try to fix this social/health problem. The company’s leadership came up with various ideas to solve the situation like changing the glue’s formula and education. I believe that a more effective solution should have been restricting the sales of the glue to people > 18 years old or by selling in bigger packages in order to reduce sales to lower income (price sensitive) individuals (i.e.: children).