Sunbeam Block

Shawn Seipler used to travel a lot. In an average year, he’d stay in as many as 150 hotel rooms. One day, a thought occurred to him. What happens to all the half-used soaps he leaves behind? He called the front desk to ask, and they told him used soap is simply tossed. In 2009, Shawn started the Clean the World Foundation out of a one-car garage in Florida. With a few friends, some potato peelers, meat grinders and cookers, Shawn developed a way to recycle used bars of soap into sterile new ones. New soap is then given to homeless shelters and to families around the world who don’t have easy access to soap. The donated soap helps to protect people from deadly diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea. Clean the World has distributed more than 50 million bars of soap to people in 127 countries. It works with 8,000 hotel and resort partners, including Hilton, Marriott and Walt Disney World.