Peppermill launches soap-recycling initiative

Dean Fuller figures that guests in the 1,623 rooms at Peppermill Resort Spa Casino annually discard about 12 tons of barely used bars of soap.

The Peppermill this month began diverting that used soap, along with half-empty bottles of shampoo, out of the region's landfills and into the lives of Third World children whose lives are threatened by poor hygiene.

Working with Clean the World, a nonprofit headquartered in Orlando, housekeepers at The Peppermill separate used soaps and shampoo bottles for shipment to Clean the World.

The nonprofit reprocesses the soap products, disinfects them and distributes them to communities that are battling acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease, two big killers of children.

Fuller says the soap recycled by The Peppermill alone is enough to serve more than 1,200 children for a year.

The hotel pays about $1,000 a month to Clean the World, and its labor costs have risen a bit as housekeepers spend time sorting discarded soaps in bathrooms.

"We can't believe how well they have responded," Fuller said last week. "The little bit of work they do each day pays big benefits."

Cards placed in The Peppermill rooms tell guests about the program, but Fuller said he hasn't heard any direct feedback in the first couple of weeks the hotel has been recycling soaps.

But he says the initiative may pay benefits with event organizers who increasingly want to see evidence of environmentally sustainable hotel practices when they are deciding whether to book rooms.

The Peppermill already scores points with that market through its extensive use of geothermal resources.