Did you ever wonder what happens to all those wonderful used soaps that are left at a bed and breakfast? Innkeepers take great care to seek out a nice scent, design a package (often touting their private label) and proudly display them. Some offer a plastic sandwich bag so that guests may take their leftover soap home. But most folks leave them behind, often hardly used and still sporting the inn logo that is carved into the soap.
Years ago, we donated our used soap to some missionary organization, but they ruled that the soaps were unsanitary and discontinued the practice. And so, over the years, thousands of our soaps from The Artist’s Inn were thrown out.
Last year we heard about the Clean the World program. We now had a new place to send our soaps….and we could either mail them or save them for a Bed and Breakast conference to be held in Lancaster County. That conference was last week, and I hauled in 17 lbs of soap from our inn. There would have been more, but throwing away soap is a hard habit to break! (Finding a place to store them until the conference was a challenge too.) I’m guessing I finally got with the program in August of last year.
At the conference, there was a competition sponsored by the generous folks at the Hummingbird Inn in VA, offering $100 to the innkeeper that brought in the most soap. My good friend, Ruth, from Flowers and Thyme B&B won – she saved 81 lbs! YAY Ruth! All together the innkeepers at our conference brought in over 300 lbs. of soap.
Still more amazing is the company that processes the used soap, Clean the World.
We’re proud to be a small part of such a great program.
And now they are helping with the gigantic clean-up efforts in Japan. To read about how you might help, click here: http://www.cleantheworld.org/japan.asp
