Why an Embassy Suites, Ritz-Carlton and a Quality Inn hotel save your left-over soap

[RamboLiberal]

Did you know that sometimes the bars of soap that you leave behind in your hotel shower get recycled and can potentially save lives?

Well, it's true. A 15-month-old, non-profit group called Clean the World recycles old hotel soaps into new soap and shampoo for impoverished countries and U.S. homeless shelters, the National Geographic Traveler told us earlier this month. Its primary goal is to help children in developing countries combat diarrheal diseases that cause nearly 1.8 million childhood deaths per year, the article says. Proper hygiene practices can elimimate avoidable deaths.

-----

In its Florida lab, Clean the World cooks the soap to remove impurities before reshaping it into 2-ounce bars, according to the group's website. It has recycling centers in Orlando, Houston and Atlanta, the article says.

Since its start, Clean the World says it has put more than "4 million soap bars and 200,000 pounds of shampoo and conditioner back into use, simultaneously eliminating over 380 tons of waste, according to its website.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/hotelcheckin/post/2010/05/clean-the-world-embassy-suites-ritz-carlton-quality-inn-recycle-half-used-soaps/1

Who is behind Clean the World? A couple of road warriors.

Seipler and Paul Till - road warriors with "high-octane sales careers" and an interest in the green economy - launched Clean the World in February 2009.

"We were business travelers," Seipler told me. "I spent 150-200 nights away. In a typical work week, I went to four different cities - Monday, New York; Tuesday, Chicago, and Wednesday, Minneapolis." He used to try to bring back old soaps and shampoos to give them to needy groups, but TSA limits on liquids and gels at airports made it difficult to do, he said.

Today, Clean the World today recycles soap from about 200 hotels in 25 states, including Sheraton, Embassy Suites, La Quinta and Ritz-Cartlon hotels.

It currently has a recycling center in Orlando and on June 1, will open another in Las Vegas. It also has a collection center in Washington D.C.; new ones will open in Chicago, New York and Houston within the next 90-180 days, he said.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/hotelcheckin/post/2010/05/clean-the-world-hotel-program-sheraton-embassy-suites-marriott-gilchrist--soames/1?loc=interstitialskip



What a great idea and cause!

[DrDan]

1. seems like a great cause - and a reason to open up each little bar of soap and use it juts a bit

you are paying for them anyway . . . .

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Holistically, that's a wasteful thing to do

It's better for the environment to not open an extra bar of soap, and then make them go through the process of recycling it, and have a new one made. The used soap has to be heated, and that takes energy. You may get a kick from making the hotel buy a new bar for the next customer "because you are paying for it anyway", but this is a hotel which has joined in a decent effort to recycle the stuff that actually needs recycling. There's no need to treat them as an enemy that you need to force to spend more money.

[Staph]

2. I often take the soap, shampoo and lotion.

My sister is an elementary school teacher in a rural part of West Virginia. I give her the hotel/motel toiletries, and she gives them to her students.

[Duer 157099]

3. This seems like a good thread to bring this up

I have questions about bar soap.

1) Why do we feel the need to "clean" soap before we use it? I know I do this, I rinse the bar to make sure it's exterior-most layer is dissolved so that I get a "fresh" layer to use. This presupposes that soap can become dirty. If soap can become dirty, then really, is it soap?

2) How come a hair on the head is emminantly touchable, but that same hair, once affixed to a bar of soap, suddenly becomes something that must be removed by streams of water, never ever by one's fingers.

Bar soap has some mysteries attached to it, doesn't it?

[snagglepuss]

6. Thanks for the LOL. However you may be as surprised as I was to learn

that bacteria grows on soap bars which is why you won't find bars of soap in medical offices or hospitals.

As for your observation about the response we have to a lone hair on a bar of soap, that is just so true and very funny.

[WCGreen]

7. It depends on if it's curly or not...

[Heywood J]

10. 1) At least in this area,

we have to wash off the outer layer of the soap before using it because the water is hard enough to form a coating. The minerals seem to react enough that the soap really doesn't clean well until this outer layer is removed - those with softer water probably don't have to do this. After it sits on the slats of the shower caddy, it tends to develop hard spots where it picks up sharp remnants of the last soap. The soap doesn't become "dirty", just less usable.

2) Unless you have long nails or the hair is curly/sticking off the bar, most of us can't grab the hair to pull it off (at least not without forcing chunks of soap under the ends of our fingernails) and have to resort to using the water. Soap is slippery when wet.

[Tailormyst]

4. That is awesome

[high density]

5. hmm

I usually wrap the soap in toilet paper and throw in the trash. I figure housekeeping doesn't need to/want to touch my used soap. This is a great idea though.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Why on earth wouldn't they touch your used soap?

First, people touch soap that others have used all the time. Secondly, housekeeping will have rubber gloves as a matter of course because there will be things they don't want to touch. So even if they think you may have done something with your soap to make it untouchable, they have an easy option.

Frankly, I hope this organisation wouldn't waste fuel shipping this stuff overseas. Donate it to homeless shelters and charities as close as possible to wherever they reform the stuff. Hell, sell it as cheap soap to anyone, if there aren't enough charities close by. There's no point in shipping a low-value, easy-to make item like soap around the world.