TIL Many hotels including Hilton and Marriott collect guests’ used soaps, scrape the hair and stuff off, then melt them down to make new soaps.

3 years ago by L4sBot to c/til

Used soap from Hilton Hotels is getting a second life.

didnt_readit 71 points 3 years ago

I’m honestly really glad to hear this. I always figured they just threw it away and it was such a massive waste.

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incognito_15 54 points 3 years ago

Honestly, as long as it's been shown to be sanitary, I'm so for recycling. Imagine throwing out all that barely used soap? What a waste.

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Kolanaki -1 points 3 years ago

Maybe it's just the crappy hotels I've used, but the soaps are always so small, I need two whole bars to take a shower. I know I'm not in the best of shape, but I ain't that huge.

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lagomorphlecture 34 points 3 years ago

Yummy, glad to be using some rando's used soap. But on a more serious note as long as it's being done in a way that is sanitary and doesn't risk spreading any diseases then this is much better than producing all that waste.

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PopularUsername 13 points 3 years ago

It's distributed to poor countries interested in free soap. They don't reuse it within the hotel, and people that receive it know it's recycled.

I question if this is actually an efficient way of donating soap, it's quite an intensive process I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of those feel-good things that actual costs more than just making new soap.

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lagomorphlecture 6 points 3 years ago

Yeah, you could be right that it is just for the feel good press to make them look good. Look at clothes donations. It tanks local textile industries and they're sometimes stuck with piles upon piles of used clothes that don't even look nice. Maybe there's something similar happening here.

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Drusas 2 points 3 years ago

One of the people involved in getting this program going has commented on this thread. You should ask them about that. I'd be curious to know the answer.

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iTravelLots 26 points 3 years ago

Hey I actually helped create this program. And as info the soap is given to third party companies, plastic is recycled (if bottled soap / shampoo), then it is hygienically processed and donated to a variety of causes. Let me know if you have any questions, but it's not (for once) horrible capitalism something or reused in the hotels.

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Drusas 7 points 3 years ago

Thank you for being part of the solution! With so much waste out there, it's nice to learn that at least some measures like these are being taken.

I'm curious what your job is that this is a program you worked on. Also curious if you had any pushback from hotels or if they reacted positively to the idea from the start.

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o_p 5 points 3 years ago

But now what can I spend all this anger on?

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imPastaSyndrome 3 points 3 years ago

Your life

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PopularUsername 3 points 3 years ago

Obviously this reduces waste which is nice but I was curious, does the program actually save money or does the cost to recycle cost more than what is recovered?

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iTravelLots 4 points 3 years ago

This part is taken care of by 3rd party companies so I can only half answer that. It bring zero savings to the hotel other than a insignificant amount less garbage that is taken away.

Recycling like this is much better and easier because you have large quantities of the same types of plastic all together. This makes processing, sorting and recycling easier. The soap itself is easy to process

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PopularUsername 1 point 3 years ago
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QueenAlucia 20 points 3 years ago

Great, I was always a bit upset thinking of all of them going to waste.

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BigPapaE 17 points 3 years ago

the hair and stuff off

What..what other kind of stuff are we talking about 🫣

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shimian 9 points 3 years ago

Little bits of shower oreos

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Flaky_Fish69 4 points 3 years ago

you know that half-liquid stuff? that stuff.

people don't shove soap up their ass.... never happens... those little soaps aren't really large enough for it...

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Hanhula 3 points 3 years ago

You wouldn't want to do that anyway. Stuff up the arse needs a flared base, or you'll end up with a hospital visit.

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SpicyPeaSoup 2 points 3 years ago

Ya never pooped a brick of soap before?

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BurnTheRight 2 points 3 years ago

It'll shoot clean up there.

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r00ty 3 points 3 years ago

And clean the chute up there.

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Flaky_Fish69 1 point 3 years ago

I mean... you're not wrong, really.

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ThesePaycheckAvenging 3 points 3 years ago
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whynotzoidberg 2 points 3 years ago path: 0 839114 845964, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
001100010010 10 points 3 years ago
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i_suppose 4 points 3 years ago

Isn't soap supposed to kill all that stuff? Wouldn't germs die when in contact with it for too long?

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cedarmesa 4 points 3 years ago

💀

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Aux 3 points 3 years ago path: 0 839025 843003 844091 865969, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
i_suppose 2 points 3 years ago

Well, TIL more than one thing!

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Aux 2 points 3 years ago path: 0 839025 843003 844091 850392 865991, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
Psaldorn 2 points 3 years ago

Soap emperor here: can confirm. But mostly I let my soapologists deal with the details.

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monobot 8 points 3 years ago path: 0 843292, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 1
scudmud 3 points 3 years ago

Good video, just the one I was thinking of. During the pandemic my company sent employees boxes of sanitation kits to assemble and bag and then donate to homeless shelters. The kit included these remanufactured soap bars, along with unused random hotel lotion and shampoo, sample tubes of toothpaste, very cheap white toothbrushes, and moist towelettes.

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HakFoo 8 points 3 years ago

I wish they'd just put the soap and shampoo in fixed dispenser units like in the hand soap in a public bathroom. No stupid little bottle of shampoo where there's more plastic than shampoo.

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Usernameblankface 1 point 3 years ago

Yeah. This is a nice idea to deal with the problem, but why are they perpetuating the problem? Why continue to use bar soaps that constantly need to be collected? Do customers throw a fit if they have liquid soap?

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Muddobbers 1 point 3 years ago

I've been in a few hotels this year and every one of them has done this. They put them in locked in containers that you can't really contaminate.

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Lzwzli 5 points 3 years ago

Reduce, reuse, recycle!

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kwerks 5 points 3 years ago

Today I learned I didn't want to know that lol I get it's probably sanitary and whatever but still. Thanks!

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reclipse 5 points 3 years ago

While I am all in for recycling, this was something I didn't want to know.

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conditional_soup 2 points 3 years ago

This is why I always take the hotel soap with me

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TomBishop 0 points 3 years ago

Ah finally, sustainability!

Nah, probably just capitalism.

Win-win then?

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