Guests love the experience of using hotel toiletries but, unfortunately, some of those half-used bottles are likely to be thrown away. To be a five-star hotel, room service has to change the hotel bathroom amenities every day, even if they’re unused. But not all hotels throw away barely-used soaps and toiletries. Eco-minded guests can rest easy knowing about hygiene kits for the homeless. Here’s how some hotels are minimizing waste by helping to provide toiletries for the homeless.

Clean the World

Clean the World is an Orlando-based non-profit that hosts a Hospitality Partner Program which hotels can enroll in for $.50 per room, per month. The program supplies bins to the hotel to collect discarded soap and plastic bottles which are distributed to homeless populations. The extra amenities hotels donate become a life-changing gift and a way to reuse otherwise wasted resources.

The soap is melted down, reformed, and repackaged into new bars, called rebatching, and then sent to charities all over the world. In 2016, extra soap was recycled and rebatched to produce 7 million new bars. 500,000 of those soap bars went to charities like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army to help victims of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti.

Hygiene Kits for the Homeless

Extra bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion must be three-quarters full in order to be reused. These bottles are combined and repackaged with the help of thousands of Clean the World volunteers who make hygiene kits for the homeless. 400,000 hygiene kits were made and sent to homeless shelters in 2016, and the program is only growing. Toiletries for homeless populations go a long way to improve quality of life and to help reduce plastic waste in landfills.

According to Thrillist, 5,000 hotels participate in the Clean the World hotel amenity recycling program. All of Disney’s hotels, most of the hotels on the Vegas strip, and more hotels in New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, and London are recycling their barely-used toiletries. American Airlines is also donating barely-used first-class passenger amenities to use in hygiene kits for the homeless. Programs like Clean the World are changing lives one kit and bar of recycled soap at a time; the work they do is inspiring for the disadvantaged and the environment.

Accent Amenities | Toiletries

Accent Amenities makes some of the best toiletry sets that are used by hotels and guest rentals around the world. Order a collection for your lodging and then try recycling your amenities through Clean the World. Your hotel or vacation rental can be part of the movement.