Recycled Soap Saves Lives in Vegas

It’s a scene that plays out thousands of times a day on the Strip: Tourists rip open hotel room soaps, pop open complimentary bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash, and use them once or twice. Then they leave, and the amenities sit half-full on a bathroom counter.

Not so long ago, those soaps and shampoos were thrown away. Now, they’re being recycled to help save lives.

A number of Strip resorts have partnered with the nonprofit group Clean the World to collect partially used hotel room toiletries and recycle them for use by people in need in the United States and abroad. Recycled soaps and shampoos have been sent to Las Vegas homes for pregnant teens, homeless shelters in New York City, Houston and Chicago and impoverished villages overseas. They have helped hundreds of thousands of Haitians struggling in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and, more recently, scores of Filipinos left homeless by typhoons and flooding.

The program works like this: Housekeepers gather used soaps, shampoos and body washes and drop them off at central collection bins set up at each property. Once the bins are filled (usually after about a week and with more than 10,000 products), a Clean the World driver picks them up and delivers them to a recycling center on South Valley View Boulevard.

Las Vegas is Clean the World’s Western distribution hub, an unsurprising fact given the city is the hotel capital of the world and home to about 150,000 hotel rooms.

Source: http://www.hospitalitynet.org/external/4054130.html