Clean the World Foundation’s Fresh Start WASH & Wellness Mobile Shower program has been providing warm showers, hygiene supplies, and additional support services since 2017 to individuals experiencing homelessness.  

Our program continues to expand across the United States, with two new locations in California recently joining the fight against hygiene insecurity.  The Fresh Start WASH & Wellness program currently operates a total of 8 mobile shower trailers that provide WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) and wellness (medical testing, vaccinations, and illness prevention) services in six cities and counties across the country.  Since the beginning of 2023, we, in coordination with our loyal service partners, have already provided 1,597 showers; distributed 2,132 hygiene kits; hosted 16 special events; donated 177 articles of clothing; and provided 369 meals. 

Stories from the Field

Meet Ivan Mays, one of our regular shower guests at the JUMP INN Drop In Center in Orlando, FL.  Ivan recently stated:

“[The shower services] give me more self-respect, more self-esteem, makes me all around feel better.  The girls that come are very nice.  It’s just something that we need.  We need to take showers.  It can be two or three weeks in between showers, and now it’s twice a week.  It’s awesome.  It makes me feel a lot better, a lot better about myself, more human.”

Tamela Mitchell, a case manager at the JUMP INN Drop In Center, also shared her sentiments: 

“Thank you so much for partnering with us at JUMP INN Drop In Center for the Homeless.  You have made such an incredible impact on our homeless friends. 

I have had some tell me that before you started coming once a week, they had to go up to three weeks at a time between showers.  Others even longer.  I have had many tell me that they felt “like a brand-new man” after getting shower services from Clean the World.  I have witnessed with my own eyes the transformation, sometimes after just one shower, and sometimes a greater transformation after many weeks of showers.  One man, in particular, that comes to mind had a long, shaggy beard, very dirty, and drunk most of the time.  He began coming and showering, and, at first, he was just clean.  Then, after a few weeks, he began trimming his beard.  After a couple more weeks, he had shaved it close, and, last week, I noticed that while in the shower, he had turned it into a goatee.  He looked so nice and so much more confident.  I do not know if the shower had anything to do with his not drinking so much, but the last couple of times I spoke to him, he was not drunk!

Thank you again for all you do and for the love you show our guests.  You are changing the world one shower at a time!”  

Clean the World, a global leader in water, sanitation, hygiene, and sustainability, has added a new Impact Dashboard to their Customer Portal which introduces advanced filtering options so partners participating in the Hospitality Recycling Program can get a detailed view of their social and environmental impact over time. By using this new feature, partners can establish internal sustainability goals, track progress, and report their contributions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a transparent way to their key stakeholders, all from within the existing Customer Portal. Clean the World provides robust reporting that has allowed for an in-depth look at key social, economic, and environmental data points, all metrics that partners within the hospitality industry are actively reporting on.

By using Clean the World’s new Impact Dashboard, hospitality partners will be able to quickly and easily gauge their social and environmental impact based on their participation in the Hospitality Recycling program. Partners will learn about how Clean the World’s global work contributes to 9 of the 17 SDGs and can add key sustainability stats to their Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) reports, and customer-facing communication, all segmented by flag, brand, individual hotel, or management company over any given period of time. Partners will also be able to access videos and photos of Clean the World programs in action, all from within the Customer Portal. This new innovative dashboard is part of Clean the World’s enhanced reporting launched last year.

With the help and dedication of partner hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and soap manufacturers, Clean the World has partnered with the hospitality industry to recycle their soap and plastic bottled amenities since 2009. Since then, Clean the World has distributed over 72 million bars of soap in 127 countries, along with 5 million hygiene kits to vulnerable people around the world and over 9 million bars of soap to homeless shelters, food pantries, refugee camps, and emergency healthcare facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Booking.com’s Sustainable Travel Report 2022 contains insights gathered from more than 30,000 travelers across 32 countries and territories, highlighting that the impact of their trips remains top of mind, with 71% of global travelers saying that they want to travel more sustainably over the coming 12 months, which is a 10% increase over the company’s 2021 data. With 81% of travelers confirming that sustainable travel is important to them, half of all respondents cited that recent news about climate change has influenced them to make more sustainable travel choices. To that end, over a third (35%) of global travelers say that the sustainability efforts of accommodations and transport providers play a strong role in their property and transport decisions respectively. In fact, 70% of global travelers say they would be more likely to choose a sustainable accommodation – whether they were looking specifically for one or not.

According to Booking.com’s findings, “awareness and visibility of more sustainable stays continues, with 40% of global travelers confirming they have seen a sustainable accommodation on an online travel site over the past year and 38% indicating that they actively look for information on the sustainability efforts of a property before they book. 46% of global travelers reported having stayed in sustainable accommodation over the past year. Of those who have experienced a more sustainable stay in the past 12 months, the reasons for selecting one vary: 41% said they chose it to help reduce their impact on the environment, 33% wanted to have a more locally relevant experience, and 31% believe sustainable properties treat the community better.”

As the hospitality industry shifts their focus to sustainable travel, Clean the World provides hospitality partners with the competitive advantage they need to effectively tell their impact story to eco-conscious and socially-conscious travelers who are eager to listen. In addition to communicating impact to their customers, hotel partners also can include these new compelling datapoints in annual reporting and other sustainability and humanitarian reporting. Clean the World hotel partners can measure their impact through bars of soap distributed and volume of product collected, and also through additional metrics such as number of hygiene kits supported, carbon footprint reduction, carbon footprint saving equivalency in trees planted, water conservation, waste diverted from landfill, waste recycled, number of refugees served, and number of people supported.

“Clean the World’s goal is to continuously add value to our programs for our partners,” says Shawn Seipler, Founder and CEO, Clean the World. “The addition of the Impact Dashboard will be extremely valuable to hotel partners and will help them understand and communicate the positive impact of their sustainability efforts and hopefully encourage additional hotels to take similar action. It is critical to show key stakeholders and guests the extent of their social and environmental stewardship. Hotel guests are making purchasing decisions based on a hotel’s commitment to improving the lives of others and the environment and it’s vital for a hotel to be able to share the extent of how they are making a positive contribution to both. Clean the World’s Hospitality Recycling program far exceeds soap recycling and waste diversion, and the new Impact Dashboard is just another example of how we are proactively anticipating our partners’ needs while continuing to support their sustainability and social impact goals in new and innovative ways. Additional features coming soon will allow hotels to automate their reporting, share their impact on social media, and access enhanced training modules. This is really just the beginning.”

At any given moment, a hospitality partner can review, track, and report on the impact they are having on the environment and in the lives of people in need through 14 different impact/sustainability indicators. It is even possible to tie those 14 indicators back to 9 of the 17 SDGs, allowing hotels to see how their partnership with Clean the World is impacting those targets—among them SDG 6, Clean Water and Sanitation which ensures the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

ORLANDO, FL —March 10, 2022 – Clean the World, a global leader in water, sanitation, hygiene, and sustainability, is expanding its Hospitality Recycling Program and Soap Saves Lives Box Program in the United Kingdom as it aims to tackle the global issue of plastic pollution and hygiene insecurity abroad.

For the last 13 years, Clean the World has partnered with the hotel industry to recycle soap and bottled amenities in the United States, Montreal, Hong Kong, Punta Cana, and Amsterdam. Since its start in 2009, Clean the World has grown into a global impact organization whose mission is to save millions of lives around the world through the recycling and distribution of soap. Clean the World has since distributed over 68 million bars of soap in 127 countries, while providing 5 million hygiene kits to vulnerable people in need. During the pandemic, over 9 million bars of soap have been given to homeless shelters, food pantries, refugee camps, and emergency healthcare facilities. This impact was driven by dedicated partners in the hospitality industry including hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and soap manufacturers.

As Clean the World expands its global Hospitality Recycling Program within the United Kingdom, it has strategically aligned with powerhouse co-founders of @BambuuBrush, Tommie Eaton and Rebecca Dudbridge to help with growth and development. Tommie and Rebecca successfully launched @BambuuBrush in January of 2019. Within their first year, they aimed to encourage 1 million plastic toothbrushes to be switched into a sustainable toothbrush made from bamboo, they have since accomplished their goal inspiring more than 2.5 million simple changes to be made stopping over 50,000 kg of plastic toothbrushes entering commercial circulation. With the help of their loyal following on social media, they reached their goal of #1millionby2020.

With 4.2 billion people brushing their teeth every morning and night with a plastic toothbrush, Tommie and Rebecca knew they could make a significant impact on plastic reduction, if they could raise awareness and inspire people to make the switch to a sustainable toothbrush made from bamboo. Their goal to educate, inspire, and empower someone to make one simple change away from a plastic toothbrush to an @BambuuBrush would mean that person would start and end their day in a sustainable way, and potentially continue to make environmentally friendly decisions throughout their day. Each of these decisions had the potential to add up on a global scale and by changing a small percentage of the population’s habits and encouraging people to make one small change could, in turn, have a much bigger impact on the future of the planet. In addition to the 2.5 million bamboo toothbrushes the team has sold, since launching they have educated over 3,000 school pupils through their environmental educational workshops, and organized 29 plastic clean ups engaging communities to take action in their local area collecting over 1 tonne of plastic waste.

Driven by impact, Tommie and Rebecca will be joining Clean the World’s global expansion team to raise awareness of hygiene insecurity and the positive impact on the environment the hotels in the United Kingdom could have by participating in the Hospitality Recycling Program. Clean the World is dedicated to coming alongside the hospitality industry to champion their sustainability efforts, social impact goals, and environmental stewardship worldwide, and currently recycles soap from 1.4 million hotel rooms daily through their partnership with over 8,000 hotels around the world. In total, over 23 million pounds or 10,432,624 kilograms of waste from the hospitality industry have been kept out of landfills globally.

“We are expanding within the United Kingdom with the help of two individuals who have a mutual desire to save the planet from harmful plastic and to create a sustainable solution to an everyday environmental challenge,” says Shawn Seipler, Founder and CEO, Clean the World. “Tommie and Rebecca are laser focused on sustainability, and the synergy and fit within our organization is a perfect match. The impact they have made with @BambuuBrush is in line with what Clean the World has done and that is what this strategic alliance is all about. We have contracted with @BambuuBrush for their talent, and the glue that binds us together is the social and environmental impact we will be making together and alongside one another.”

As part of the expansion within the UK, Clean the World’s Soap Saves Lives Box Program will also be made available as an impact product offered to organizations and groups. The Soap Saves Lives Boxes contain life-saving hygiene products that can be assembled by employees and then distributed by organizations to a local charity of their choice. The Soap Saves Lives Box Program takes aim at stopping the spread of COVID-19 and other hygiene related illnesses by providing critical hygiene supplies to vulnerable individuals within the community. It also offers a unique corporate social responsibility (CSR) opportunity that is easily adjustable to meet the needs of any organization and it energizes and engages employees in a safe, team-building event on a mission to save lives. Since the products inception in April, 2020, over 10,000 employees have assembled a total of 617,875 hygiene kits that were then distributed to charities and other NGOs across the United States.  

“After being introduced to Clean the World’s team through our partnership with Plastic Oceans, instantly I was in awe and admired the mission and impact Clean the World has made over the last 13 years,” says Tommie Eaton, Founder, @BambuuBrush. “With a focus in the UK and Europe we will continue to drive sustainable, purposeful practices through Clean the World’s Hospitality Recycling Program, Soap Saves Lives Box and Hygiene Kit Build events and also some exciting new opportunities we are working on behind the scenes. 2022 is the year of action and impact!”

“I have always admired the direct work & impact that CTW delivers, and the ethos and mission align with everything we strive to achieve at @BambuuBrush,” says Rebecca Dudbridge, Founder, @BambuuBrush. “This is the start of the perfect partnership, and I believe mutual passion can help create truly revolutionary work. I look forward to building the UK brand in powerful and innovative ways and providing the UK opportunities to make a real and tangible difference to those struggling with the stigma of hygiene poverty.”

Clean the World’s partnerships go far beyond waste diversion and soap recycling. As the hospitality industry shifts their focus to sustainable travel, Clean the World hotel partners will not only be able to measure their impact through bars of soap distributed and volume of product collected, but also through additional metrics such as carbon footprint reduction, water saved, waste diverted from landfill, energy generated, number of hygiene kits supported, number of showers supported, and number of people served. Hospitality partners can now track and report on the impact they’re having on the environment and in the lives of people in need, and tie those metrics back to 11 of the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, among them SDG 6, Clean Water and Sanitation which ensures the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

About Clean the World
Clean the World is a social enterprise dedicated to WASH (water, sanitization, and hygiene) and sustainability. It operates soap recycling centers and offices in Orlando, Montreal, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Washington DC, Punta Cana, and United Kingdom and leads a “Global Hygiene Revolution” to distribute recycled soap and hygiene products from more than 8,000 hotel, resort, and cruise partners. Clean the World’s foundation provides WASH (water, sanitization, and hygiene) programming to benefit global communities with high pre-adolescent death rates due to acute respiratory infection (pneumonia) and diarrheal diseases (cholera) – which are two of the top killers of children under the age of five. Since 2009, the foundation has distributed 68 million bars of soap and 5 million hygiene kits in 127 countries. For more information on how you can participate in Clean the World’s world-renowned recycling program, please visit https://cleantheworld.org/get-involved/hotel-recycling-program/ 

About @BambuuBrush

@BambuuBrush are a mission driven business who strive to make sustainable actions accessible for all and to Educate, Inspire and Empower people that we all hold the power to change the world, starting with One Simple Change. @BambuuBrush products fund social impact projects around the globe to combat and utilize plastic waste. Visit https://www.bambuubrush.com for more information.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Christina Flores
Clean the World
info@cleantheworld.org
407-574-8353

Delivering Hygiene Kits with Lenovo

Clean the World’s mission to save millions of lives worldwide could not be done without excellent partners like Lenovo. Over the past two years, the team at Lenovo has assembled 17,750 hygiene kits that have been donated to charities that fight hunger, homelessness, provide youth services, and many others.

Through Clean the World’s Hygiene Kit Program, corporate partners like Lenovo have teamed up with Clean the World to distribute hygiene kits to individuals living in poverty or families displaced from their homes due to natural disasters since 2013.

Clean the World’s Hygiene Kit Program, which focuses on in-person hygiene kit builds, would set the foundation for our newest product, Soap Save Lives Boxes, which focuses on remote assembly of hygiene kits. Together both programs have generated a total distribution of 5 million hygiene kits nationwide.

The Pivot – Adapting to Change

In March 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak caused major shutdowns across the country. However, with most people working from home, individuals still wanted a way to give back, especially when there was a heavy emphasis on the importance of hygiene health. Corporations like Lenovo quickly got involved because it was a safe way to empower their employees to help communities in need, particularly when the world was being instructed to stay home.

In response to the high demand, Clean the World adjusted its existing hygiene kit program and started packing the supplies needed to build 100 kits into single cardboard boxes. The program’s initial response was a success, with volunteers from Sands helping us build 20,000 kits within 48 hours. After that, its popularity multiplied, and soon Clean the World found itself receiving messages from people requesting boxes to assemble kits of their own.

This demand resulted in creating the Soap Saves Lives Box program, which gives individuals and corporations a safe way to support the charities dearest to their hearts without leaving the comfort of their homes. The program has plans to expand internationally and now includes the option to assemble school kits for children suffering from economic hardship.

Where the Impact Goes

Lenovo has distributed 17,750 hygiene kits through our Soap Saves Lives Box program in the last two years. Their hygiene kit builds have engaged their employees and their families, totaling 355 employee volunteers across 27 states.

This past September, Lenovo employees assembled 2,500 kits for Next Door Solutions as part of Lenovo’s Global Month of Service (GMOS). Lenovo’s GMOS event is a yearly initiative that seeks to engage their employees to empower individuals with limited access to technology and STEM Education in the communities where they live and work. In addition, the hygiene kits will help domestic violence survivors and families move out of crisis and violence and into safety, stability, and self-sufficiency.

Last year’s Global Month of Service (2020) engaged volunteers across 12 states to assemble and distribute 2,750 kits. Last year was the first year that volunteers participated in a virtual context to improve the quality of life for vulnerable communities. Lenovo then donated the kits to help Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, Project Renewal, and Shepherd’s Hope (The Center of Englewood).

“My family really had a great time doing that, and it lead to some great conversations on why the kits were needed in the first place,” said Lenovo employee, Jenny.

This year, in support of their annual kickoff event, Lenovo gathered over 500 employees, friends, and family members to assemble 12,500 kits. The charities’ initiatives vary across services, including fighting hunger, ending homelessness, providing youth services, and many others.

Our Impact

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Clean the World, in partnership with corporations, employees, families, friends across the country, have distributed over 400,000 Soap Saves Lives Box hygiene kits to people in need in the US. During the pandemic, 9 million bars of soap were distributed in the US and around the world.

The program helps support our Foundation’s domestic program like the Fresh Start WASH and Wellness program and our WASH Stations.

Our Fresh Start WASH and Wellness program combines WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) Education and wellness services in a traveling hygiene unit equipped with up to four complete bathroom/shower rooms. The program aims to help individuals experiencing homelessness gain dignity and help them transition from homelessness into self-sufficiency.

The Clean the World WASH Stations Program provides access to restroom facilities and handwashing stations for unsheltered homeless individuals throughout the United States. This program was born out of the need to empower individuals experiencing homeless to protect themselves from illness that could be preventable through adequate hygiene such as proper sanitation, water access, and hygiene practices like handwashing.

If you’d like to learn more about how to create your hygiene build event, please visit:

https://cleantheworld.org/get-involved/on-site/