Those tiny bars of hotel soaps and adorable toiletries can be a fun perk of a hotel stay, especially if they’re a fancy brand that we would never pay for in real life. But what happens to the soap that you use once and leave in the shower, or don’t take home to hand out to houseguests? Turns out that travelers and hotels combine to toss out roughly a million bars a day in the US, according to Thrillist, and perhaps 5 million bars a day worldwide. That’s a lot of wasted soap.
An Orlando-based company has stepped up to make sure that all those bars of soap, half used shampoo and conditioner bottles, don’t go to waste. The company is called Clean the World and they collect used hotel soap, melt it down, and make new clean soap. Toiletries like shampoo and conditioner can be turned into hygiene kits that are distributed at homeless shelters. The new bars of soap, though, are sent to international charities and groups like the Red Cross and Salvation Army to deliver countries where soap is not only a luxury, but can be absolutely life-saving. While most of us don’t spend much time thinking about the bar of Dove that sits by the sink, in many countries around the world a bar of soap can actually save the lives of babies.
By Melissa Locker
