Clean the World is the world's largest organization recycling hotel soap. It is also the first "benefit corporation," or "B" corporation established in Florida. The CEO of the organization is Shawn Seipler. Clean the World partners with the Global Soap Project.
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About
Clean the World collects discarded soap and shampoo from the hotel industry and then sanitizes the soap so that it can be recycled and distributed to the poor in order to prevent hygiene-related death. By 2015, Clean the World had distributed over 20 million bars of soap to the poor in 96 different countries. Access to soap helps prevent the spread of illnesses and helps prevent hygiene related deaths. Every year, millions of children die of preventable diseases because they lack access to soap. In the United States, hotels contribute to landfill waste, up to around 200 million metric tons of solid waste every year.
History
Shawn Seipler and Paul Till started Clean the World in 2009. Originally, they hadn't intended for Clean the World to become a nonprofit, instead they wanted to own a business which was both "green" and would make them money. Every day in the United States, one million bars of hotel soap are dumped in landfills. When founder, Seipler, discovered this information, he realized that there may be a business opportunity using this information. Seipler and Till searched for a way to use their idea. The United States proved not to be a good market, but when they found out how many children die because of hygiene-related illness, they decided they would help distribute soap around the world.
Seipler and Till started small, working with their family and friends and operating out of a garage in Orlando, Florida. They broke down the soap they received from hotels using meat-grinders and other kitchen utensils and then cooked the soap into clean bars. Eventually, they moved to downtown Orlando and upgraded the technology and machines used.
Laguna Beach, in 2011, became the first city in the United States to have all hotels participate in Clean the World.
Within three years, the home business became an "international charity that has distributed 9.5 million bars of recycled soap in 45 countries." By 2015, they were distributing soap in 99 different countries. Clean the World has helped redirect 250 tons of soap from going into Nevada landfills as of 2014.
In 2016, the Orlando Magic helped promote Clean the World distribute soap "to the less fortunate."