Have you ever wondered what happens to the millions of bars of soap that hotels discard every day? Like so many other useful things, it is often thrown in the garbage and sent to our landfills where it sits indefinitely. At the same time, there are millions of people who are living without basic hygiene, and the resulting illnesses claim more than 1.7 million lives each year.
Fortunately, the Global Soap Project has created a way to eliminate these two problems with one solution, and we at the Abbey Inn are proud to partner with them in this endeavor. We collect used soap and send it to the GSP plant in Las Vegas where it is purified and reprocessed into new bars. In the last six months, we have collected and donated about 200 pounds of used soap.
The new soap bars are shipped to 32 different countries to help vulnerable populations like disaster victims, refugees, the homeless, and mothers and children living in extreme poverty. There, it saves lives and helps prevent illnesses such as pneumonia and diarrhea.
Simple hand washing with soap is something we take for granted, and we are thankful for the Global Soap Project for giving us a way to offer this basic necessity to others.
When you are staying at the Abbey Inn or any other participating hotel, you can help by cleaning your used soap and removing any debris.