Plan Your Meetings

Helping the world, one bar of soap at a time

It’s hard to imagine life without something as simple as bar soap, yet millions of people in third-world countries live that reality. It is estimated that 3.5 million children die each year from diseases that can be prevented by washing their hands with soap and water. Clean The World (CTW), a charitable organization based in Orlando hopes to reduce that number to zero. Through partnerships with Central Care Mission and hotels across the U.S., CTW will donate gently used hotel room soaps and other personal hygiene products to the residents of underdeveloped nations.

Using re-batching and sterilization methods to reshape bars and remove impurities, CTW is not only saving lives around the world, but also U.S. landfills, which are clogged with thousands of tons of soap waste, primarily from hotels.

“There are 4.6 million hotel rooms in the United States alone, and it is estimated that some 2.6 million bars of soap are discarded every day, enough to supply each of those 3.5 million children with a bar of soap every three days,” stated Peter Olsen, CTW’s communications director.

With its first hotel partner, the Peabody Orlando, CTW recently delivered more than 2,000 pounds of recycled soap to Cap Haitien, Haiti — the poorest region of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Currently, 100 hotels in Central Florida are active participants in the program, including Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Marriott, Renaissance Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn Select and Sheraton Suites. The program’s hotels represent 10,000 rooms, which provide 500 pounds of soap daily (3,500 pounds weekly). The organization is currently expanding its operations into Boston, Las Vegas, New York, Houston and Chicago.

Visit Cleantheworld.org for more information.