Appalled by the scale of wastage, Seipler began investigating how and why the hospitality industry wastes so much soap disposal. He then brainstormed ways to transform this shameful dynamic. Could discarded soap somehow be saved from the landfill and re-directed to those who desperately need it? The solution lied in “re-batching”, a process that involves melting down old soap and re-forming it into new bars.
The process isn’t necessarily labor-intensive. Seipler enlisted his Puerto Rican relatives, issued them vegetable peelers, and began “cooking soap” in the garage of his family home. Call it “Breaking Good”… actually, Seipler went with “Clean The World” and officially launched the enterprise in 2009.
Since then, Seipler has expanded both his base of operations and his team of employees and volunteers. The basic re-batching process is still relatively simple, however, resulting in imperfectly-shaped bars of nondescriptly colored soap. Looks don’t matter – use a bar of soap once or twice and its original shape is gone anyway. To the point, Clean The World has provided over 41 million bars of soap to millions of families across 118 countries, working through and with NGO hygiene programs and partnerships.
