Narrator: Hotels throw out
millions of bars of used soap every week,
but they don't have to go in the trash.
Recycling soap can be as simple
as shaving the surface with potato peelers.
We would sit here and just scrape it off
and make sure it was cleaned up and good to go.
Narrator: That was 14 years ago.
Today, Shawn Seipler's company, Clean the World,
runs a factory that can handle thousands of bars an hour.
And across the Atlantic in Lyon, France,
the team at Unisoap turns the waste into new bars
they say are completely sanitary.
Both companies donate their products to the homeless
and children in developing countries.
But as these nonprofits perfect the process
of dealing with this type of trash,
hotels have started to cut back
on individually wrapped hygiene products,
and some countries are even considering
banning them entirely.
We traveled to France and Florida
to see how these two companies help people clean themselves
with worldwide waste.
A secondhand bar of soap isn't as gross as it might seem.
Yes, there's probably dirt, hair,
dead skin cells, and bacteria on there,
but when you wash, soap molecules bind to the germs
and natural oils on your skin.
While these molecules attract grease and grime,
they repel water.
Running water pushes the soap molecules,
along with all that captured filth, off your skin
safely away from you.
So even a contaminated bar is safe to clean your hands with.
The bar of soap may have microbes on it,
but it probably won't make you sick.
In fact, the simple act of handwashing
can wash away something as serious as the Ebola virus.
Still, both Unisoap and Clean the World
follow extra guidelines to clean their bars.
Here's how Unisoap collects
thousands of bars from hotels in France.
Narrator: First, all grime left from
the hotel guests must be removed.
The team installed peelers into a table
to take off the outer layers.
Narrator: The peelers are razor-sharp,
so workers wear special gloves to protect their fingers.
They inspect every bar.
The company claims scraping alone
is enough to maintain a sanitary process,
but it's a lot of work.
Narrator: So Pauline worked with an engineer
to invent a machine that can reduce some of the labor.
While Unisoap wouldn't show us
exactly how this prototype works,
it hopes to build more of them as it scales up.
Narrator: Commercial mixers grind and blend
the differently sized bars into smaller, uniform pieces.
The mixture finally enters an extruder
that molds the soap into one long piece.
Workers hand-cut the individual bars
and stamp Unisoap's logo into each one.
Narrator: Since the company launched in 2017,
workers have processed
nearly 10 metric tons of soap this way.
Over in the United States, the much larger Clean the World
upgraded to an industrial assembly line years ago.
The used soap comes from thousands of hotels
around the world, adding up to about 1.4 million rooms.
In 2009, CEO Shawn Seipler started out shaving soap
with vegetable peelers in a one-car garage.
We would sit here and just scrape it off
and make sure it was cleaned up and good to go.
Narrator: Today, a giant machine called a refiner
cleans the dirt and hair from the top layers,
pushing out uniform noodle-like strands
from all the differently sized bars.
Those strands get heated
and mixed with a solution of water and bleach
for seven to eight minutes to sanitize them.
A conveyor belt brings the sterilized mix to a final refiner
before it gets molded.
A long bar of recycled soap rolls out from the extruder
as it's cut into individual bars.
Clean the World ships soap overseas
to countries like Ghana, Bangladesh, and the Philippines,
where many people live without basic access
to running water.
More than 3 billion people around the world
live this way,
and over 700 children die every day
from diarrheal diseases that might easily be prevented
by washing with soap and water.
We need a couple more.
Narrator: The company reports back to its hotel partners
about how their donations help.
Shawn: So they know exactly how much
landfill diversion they've had,
how many bars of soap have gotten
in the hands of children and mothers around the world
because of their efforts.
Narrator: Since 2009, Clean the World has donated
more than 73 million recycled bars to children in need.
Even though Unisoap is still growing
compared to Clean the World,
it's already making an impact closer to home.
Narrator: Pauline got her idea to
recycle soap while staying at a hotel.
Narrator: So she started reaching out to hotels
in 2017 about their used toiletries.
Now they collect soap from nearly 350 locations.
Getting the soap was the easy part;
figuring out how to recycle it took longer.
Narrator: That led Pauline to a government program
that matches young people with disabilities
to a variety of small companies,
and she relies on volunteers to help distribute hygiene kits
containing toothbrushes, toothpaste,
and, of course, recycled soap.
Narrator: Marcelle comes in a few times a week
to meet with friends ...
Marcelle: Mm!
Narrator: Play games, and stay warm,
as well as to use the only public showers in the area.
Narrator: Unisoap has donated 30,000 of these bars
across France to community centers just like this one.
But the hotel industry may be shifting away from practices
that allow these two companies to help people.
In 2019, Marriott International and IHG,
two of the world's largest hotel companies,
announced they were stocking bathrooms
with large refillable liquid dispensers.
That's almost 2.4 million hotel rooms
with no more bars in their showers.
The companies estimate they'll eliminate
over 2 million pounds of plastic
heading for the landfill this way.
Marriott told Insider it's even considering
removing the small hand-soap bars next to hotel sinks.
But this trade-off isn't so simple.
According to one study,
washing with a bar uses less soap versus liquid cleaners --
up to six times less.
So bars go further than liquids
and don't require plastic bottles to begin with.
And those refillable soap containers,
they nearly always take on more bacteria
when staff refill them.
Despite this, Unisoap and Clean the World
continue to grow their soap-recycling initiatives
beyond their humble beginnings.
Both started from a simple question:
"What happens to this soap after I check out?"
So the next time you're asked
how a hotel can make your stay better,
consider asking them what they do with your dirty soap.