Clean The World: Sean Seipler recycles your used soaps in hotels

After checking into the hotel room, we usually turn to the washroom first after leaving our bags. The soap uses attractive packaging placed next to the bathroom counter. Every hotel chooses soaps, shampoos, their packaging and branding very carefully. But these cute little soaps go on to become a headache for them. After using for 1-2 days, customers keep the soap (some customers even take it home!) and the hotels are responsible for disposing of the remaining soap. What do you say to give so much importance to a small soap? But friends it's not like that! This is actually a big problem all over the world. Look at India for example. Let's assume there are around 50000 hotels in India (actually must be more).

Taking an average of 10 rooms in each hotel, there are a total of 5 lakh rooms. At 70% occupancy rate, about 3.5 lakh rooms are used daily which means 3.5 lakh soaps are being thrown away with little use every day. What to do with these soaps? This question must have been asked by any guest in the hotel! But 14 years ago, a man in America had this question. He didn't just stop at the question but he also found the answer and from that day till now his answer has saved the lives of thousands of people all over the world!

He reborn soap and saved many people from death...I am sure the readers will surely love to read his story! Sean Sipler from America was working in the field of technology. Sean had to travel all over the world for work. So much so that he used to stay in hotels for 150-200 days in a year. While staying at one such hotel in 2008, Sean wondered what happened to half-used soap. He immediately called room service and asked, "What do you do with used soap?" Asked this question. The answer came, we throw away the used soap. Sean did some math and realized that millions of soaps are being thrown away every day.

We should do something about this. That thought settled in his head. When he returned home a few weeks later, he asked the same question at a nearby Holiday Inn. The answer was the same. He asked the manager, will you give me this soap instead of throwing it away? The manager agreed. On the same day he visited six more hotels and all the hotels agreed. Within a month, Sean came up with thousands of soaps and with the help of friends started a small workshop in his garage. He peeled off the outer part of the soap like he would peel potatoes.

After that put it in a grinder and grind the soaps. This crumb is melted and then poured into soap molds. After drying overnight, the soap bars were cut the next day. And create a new soap! For all this he used only the tools used in the kitchen. He soon started producing 500 soaps per day from his garage. Soaps are getting ready, but what to do with them? Shawn's reading revealed that around 9,000 children die worldwide every day from diseases caused by unsanitary conditions.

More than half of these deaths could be prevented by regular hand washing alone. Sean's attempt was to bring the soaps he made to these children in many poor countries. This is why he started an organization called "Clean The World". Although the idea was lofty, it was difficult to implement. Collecting soap from thousands of hotels, processing it and delivering it to many distant countries was difficult in terms of logistics and money had to be raised for this. He tried to many organizations that gave donations but could not raise the money. The stock of soap was also increasing here. There were signs that Shawn would have to shut down the entire project if nothing was done soon. That's when Sean Sipler decided to try a new business model.

The main purpose of this article is to inspire our fellow entrepreneurs! He made his organization a platform business. Just as Uber is a platform that connects customers and taxi drivers, clean the world is a platform that connects hotels and children in need. There is a plan to benefit both sides. Shawn began charging clean the world participating hotels a nominal fee of $1 per room per month. The hotels got three benefits from this fee.

The first is the freedom from the responsibility of disposing of the soap, the second is the help to meet the Sustainability Goals in terms of the environment and the third is the facility to show the social impact of the hotel! Along with this, by working with organizations such as United Nations, Unicef, Children International, it was facilitated to send soap to the places where it is needed. These organizations work with local clinics and schools. Teaches children the importance of hygiene, also supervises the distribution and use of soap.

Currently Clean the world is working with 8000 hotels (1.5 million rooms), they have started soap processing factories in more than 8 countries worldwide. To date, they have delivered 70 million bars of soap to 127 countries and in doing so have reduced 23 million pounds of waste to sea/land. Refugees from Syria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Zambia, Honduras have been the biggest beneficiaries of African countries. Taking inspiration from clean the world, similar organizations are starting to emerge in other countries as well.

Shawn has solved more than one problem with his unique idea, that too by building a profitable business without relying on donations! This is what Shawn tells everyone to this day. Still 3 billion people in the world do not have access to a simple but essential facility like soap. And thousands of hotels are still throwing away the soap. That bar of soap lying on your basin could save someone's life...don't waste it! You also pass on this knowledge without keeping it to yourself... Who knows, someone will read "Shaun" and save the world! Cheers!