U.S.-based charity helps hotels clean up their act

Meet the non-profit social enterprise that’s provided 25 million bars of soap to 99 different countries.

When Shawn Seipler, an American businessman who travelled and stayed in hotels several times per week learned that his barely-used soaps and hygiene products were simply thrown away, he was shocked.

Seipler said: “I picked up the phone and called the front desk and asked them what happens to the bar of soap when I'm done using it. They said they just threw it away."

He decided to do something about it. In 2009, he founded Clean the World, a non-profit organisation that has a two-part mission: to recycle hygiene products discarded by the hospitality sector and to distribute these recycled and other donated products to impoverished people throughout the world.

At first it was a simple venture run from Seipler’s garage, where the team used potato peelers, meat grinders and cookers to recycle the used soap into fresh clean bars. Now Clean the World operates in Hong Kong, Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida, and distributes to over 99 countries.

They are now the largest global recycler of hotel amenities, with over 2,290 hotel and resorts participating. They project has diverted over 3,370 tonnes of hotel waste from landfill since 2009.

The recycling process is straight-forward: the soap is collected, put through a shredder, has all bacterial residue removed, is pressed into new bars, packaged and delivered.

Clean the World hopes that these efforts will help prevent the millions of hygiene-related deaths that happen each year and to reduce the death rate of hygiene-related illnesses.

The organisation has recently partnered with a similar outfit, Global Soap, to form an integrated social enterprise.

Global Soap’s strength is in distribution and education and it brings its 1600 partners on board and its expertise in identifying which communities would benefit most from the hygiene products and hygiene educational initiatives.

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“By joining forces with Clean the World, Global Soap can focus solely on improving global hygiene,” said Sam Stephens, executive director of Global Soap. “The result will be a much stronger and more sustainable impact on global health.”

In addition to its two main activities, the integrated group also helps hotels train their staff via on-site training, posters and instructional videos. They also provide their own bins to participating properties and help with zero-carbon shipping to their facilities.

Speaking about the consolidation, Steipler said: “This is truly a situation where one plus one equals three. As a unified team, we will divert more trash from landfills, recycle and manufacture more soap, reach more people, and bring greater focus to the sustainable impact of our life-saving mission.”