[HN Gopher] The afterlife of used hotel soap
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The afterlife of used hotel soap
        
       Author : Anon84
       Score  : 228 points
       Date   : 2022-04-24 11:12 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thehustle.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thehustle.co)
        
       | lozenge wrote:
       | Flagged for title
        
         | jagged-chisel wrote:
         | Was the title different from the article when you flagged?
        
       | jrochkind1 wrote:
       | Recycling partially used soap is a good idea. Making sure
       | everyone around the world has access to soap is certainly super
       | important.
       | 
       | There's really no reason US recycled soap needs to be _the soap_
       | that is sent to (eg) Africa, shipped over oceans. Doesn 't (eg)
       | Africa have it's own soap production facilities? But I guess
       | American consumers would be unwilling to use recycled soap? Or
       | just the neat connection between the soap collected in one place
       | and delivered to those poor unfortunates overseas is what's
       | necessary to get funding and other support? Nobody wants to fund
       | just paying for soap in (say) Africa or just recycling soap in
       | the US, I guess.
       | 
       | Causing "60%+ reduction in the number of children who die from
       | diarrheal diseases each year" -- is a pretty stunning claim.
       | Looking closer... I guess they're simply saying that children
       | ding of such diseases had dropped by 60% from 1990 to 2020, not
       | that they alone are responsible for that? Just that they've
       | "helped" to some unknown extent? I bet most readers didn't catch
       | that. That seems a bit dishonest actually. Still, even the 60%
       | reduction in such deaths over 20 years alone is pretty great and
       | I hadn't known about it! (I believe this is one of the leading
       | causes of death in man parts of the world -- or used to be?). I
       | suspect this particular effort had a pretty minimal contribution
       | to those numbers.
        
         | DocTomoe wrote:
         | > There's really no reason US recycled soap needs to be the
         | soap that is sent to (eg) Africa, shipped over oceans. Doesn't
         | (eg) Africa have it's own soap production facilities?
         | 
         | The article mentions several target areas that are under civil
         | war and natural catastrophe conditions, where soap production
         | might be collapsed. Syria, for example, was renowned for their
         | Aleppo soap, whose recipe was allegedly over a thousand years
         | old, and whose original production facilities were in one of
         | the most embattled locations in fights between Western Forces
         | and the so-called Islamic State (Syrian refugees have started
         | making that soap again in their exile, mostly in Turkey). I'd
         | wager soap production in Haiti also was impacted.
         | 
         | I once was in the "don't send them goods, send them money so
         | they can buy local goods and help their economy" camp. Then I
         | experienced the high levels of corruption in these countries,
         | and how money easily disappeared. It's hard and unprofitable to
         | make a truckload of soap disappear, unless the local warlord
         | has some kind of soapy-water fetish.
        
         | hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
         | I apologize if this just comes off as "jaded old man", but I
         | have gotten warier as I've gotten older of the real harms of
         | first world countries dumping all this "aid" on the third world
         | and calling it charity. It's not hard to see how tons of free
         | food, 2nd hand clothing, and even things like recycled soap
         | could undercut any native producers in these third world
         | countries, making them perpetually dependent on aid.
        
           | kiliantics wrote:
           | Yeah, it would be better if instead the first world countries
           | stopped destabilising governments and stealing natural
           | resources in the third world. They might have a decent chance
           | at developing independently then.
        
             | interpenetrate wrote:
             | Bingo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Europe_Underdevelop
             | ed_Afri...
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | zelon88 wrote:
           | I can't stop thinking about this because on surface it sounds
           | reasonable, but there's something off about the logic.
           | 
           | So don't offer aid because it will stop capital investment.
           | But there is no capital to invest because people spend their
           | days trying to stay alive rather than obtaining capital.
           | 
           | So the logic is flawed. You want to promote investment in a
           | place with nothing to invest by not investing in that place.
           | 
           | But furthermore, you want to do it in the name of fairness.
           | You want to give Africa the same market opportunity that
           | exists in America. That logic is also flawed, because there
           | is no opportunity in Africa. So you're just letting companies
           | with preexisting status hoarde all the opportunity.
        
             | easytiger wrote:
             | > So the logic is flawed. You want to promote investment in
             | a place with nothing to invest by not investing in that
             | place.
             | 
             | Why do you think they don't have anything to invest?
        
               | zelon88 wrote:
               | Because the concept of capital was already created
               | elsewhere in the world and now they have to obtain
               | something that they never had to begin with.
               | 
               | How do you compete with something you didn't know existed
               | until it showed up on your beaches and started stealing
               | people?
        
             | orangepurple wrote:
             | How did European countries originally create the capital to
             | invest?
        
               | barry-cotter wrote:
               | Very, very slowly. The Little Divergence, where Western
               | Europe started to grow faster than any region had ever
               | done before in a sustained way, started in the 1300s. It
               | was the 1800s before the Great Divergence[1] happened and
               | it became obvious that the West was doing something new
               | in human history, sustained economic growth large enough
               | to outpace population growth, that could be sustained.
               | 
               | Europe generated the capital to invest very, very slowly.
               | The joy of foreign direct investment is in but having to
               | spend centuries saving up.
               | 
               | [1] ACCOUNTING FOR THE GREAT DIVERGENCE Stephen
               | Broadberry
               | 
               | http://www.ehes.org/ehes2015/papers/Broadberry.pdf
        
               | zelon88 wrote:
               | Seriously?
               | 
               | It's easy when you're the first one in a non-globalized
               | world where you literally create the capital by yourself,
               | for yourself, and then spend it on yourself.
               | 
               | But trying to start an economy in Africa while competing
               | with the pre-existing economy of the rest of the world...
               | How is that the same thing?
        
               | interpenetrate wrote:
               | Primitive Accumulation: https://www.marxists.org/archive/
               | marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm (see ch. 26-33)
        
             | hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
             | There is a huge difference between investing in the
             | productive capacity of a country, and dumping cheap/free
             | goods.
             | 
             | If you look at countries that _have_ successfully
             | transitioned from 2nd /3rd world countries to 1st world
             | economies, despite what "free market" boosters would have
             | you think, nearly all of the started out with a huge amount
             | of protectionism, so that domestic producers could improve
             | their capacity without getting decimated by (initially)
             | more advanced foreign competitors. South Korea is a great
             | example of this, and of course China - while China is
             | famous for its _exports_ , China makes it notoriously
             | difficult for foreign firms to compete in the country,
             | often putting out the tantalizing notion of a huge market,
             | but then stealing trade secrets and putting their thumb
             | heavily on the scale in favor of domestic companies.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | jrochkind1 wrote:
             | You can offer aid/investment in a different way that builds
             | up local capacity instead of dependence. Which isn't always
             | easy or straightforward, but the first step is the
             | intention.
             | 
             | It will often be less beneficial for the fortunes of the
             | "developed world" based institutions behind the
             | philanthropy though, which is why the unconsidered default
             | is often in the other direction (even without actual
             | malicious intent which sometimes exists too), and it takes
             | extra intention and commitment and willingness to sacrifice
             | some self-interest.
        
           | mrmattyboy wrote:
           | So what about something like:
           | 
           | * US charity that recycles US-hotel used soap
           | 
           | * The recycled soap is resold in US as a charitable item
           | 
           | * Profits from recycled soap sales are used to help fund/grow
           | 3rd world soap manufacturers, or to help them lower the cost
           | to make it, or subsidise the cost to more available to
           | citizens of their country
           | 
           | I see your point and, I know it seems a little roundabout,
           | but could this solve the issue?
        
             | DocTomoe wrote:
             | Depends on whether you want the people to have soap, or
             | their local strongman to have a soap-money-financed golden
             | AK47.
        
             | jrochkind1 wrote:
             | I think it would be worth a try!
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | That dependency was a large part of Nestle's strategy in
           | providing baby formulae in Africa. They would supply each new
           | mother with - if I'm not mistaken - one month or three
           | month's worth of formulae. Just enough so that she would stop
           | lactating, but require them to now purchase many month's
           | worth of formulae at prices that they really could not
           | afford.
        
             | alsetmusic wrote:
             | Excellent podcast ep about it here:
             | 
             | https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-
             | bastards-29236...
        
             | mayankkaizen wrote:
             | Holy shit! I didn't know about that. If true, this is pure
             | evil. Any source for further reading?
             | 
             | Edit - never mind. I have just gone through 2 articles and
             | now my blood is boiling.
        
               | jrochkind1 wrote:
               | What imperialism and neo-colonialism controlled by
               | european-descended cultures have done to exploit the rest
               | of the world is so terrible that it almost sounds like
               | science fiction, and we in the countries on the taking
               | end mostly manage to avoid knowing about it. It is
               | ongoing.
        
               | wahern wrote:
               | Nestle used the same marketing techniques in _every_
               | country. In the United States _today_ approx. 70% of
               | babies are fed entirely or partially using formula. If
               | that number surprises you, then maybe that 's a hint to
               | check your privilege.
               | 
               | Don't forget that one of the major exports of "European
               | cultures"--including European-educated people from
               | elsewhere--is manufactured outrage.
               | 
               | Making a buck off of poor people is hardly unique to
               | European culture.
        
               | jrochkind1 wrote:
               | Oh no, it's certainly not unique to European culture. The
               | rich of Europe, and of other settler-colonies set up by
               | Europe like the USA, have just been the most successful
               | at it for the past few hundred years, including at
               | extracting profit from most other parts of the planet to
               | the benefit of the European (and European-
               | founded/dominated) parts. phenomenally successful.
        
               | sacrosancty wrote:
               | It's because those countries don't protect themselves
               | from foreign predatory selling. Developed countries have
               | all sorts of restrictions on what their own citizens can
               | import, what can be sold locally, even what free gifts
               | they can accept, to prevent prevent that sort of
               | exploitation. But the common feature of poor countries is
               | that they're bad at self-governing, so they're kind of at
               | the mercy of everyone else. What can other people do
               | about that? Regime change? That's been tried a lot and
               | doesn't work.
               | 
               | I know this sounds cold, but blaming what foreigners do
               | on them is kind of fruitless. There are so many of them
               | waiting to exploit anyone. It's like blaming foreign
               | hackers for hacking your computers or even blaming the
               | weather for blowing down your fence. Yes, it's
               | technically their fault, but you're never going to
               | eliminate those outside forces so you'd better improve
               | your own security.
               | 
               | Not sure why you singled out the ethnicity of the people
               | in those foreign countries since China does it too now.
        
               | jrochkind1 wrote:
               | I know you already declared it "fruitless" but it's worth
               | looking into the decades that the USA and other countries
               | spent using all the political, economic, and military
               | force they could to prevent these countries from
               | protecting themselves from foreign predatory selling,
               | it's probably part of the picture.
        
               | hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
               | FWIW there were widespread, decades-long boycotts of
               | Nestle due to their baby formula marketing:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott
        
             | anamax wrote:
             | Hmm.
             | 
             | W1 uses 1/N of the free formula and sells the remainder to
             | W2-N. Next month, she's still lactating AND has enough
             | money to buy 1/N for N-1 months.
             | 
             | Note that the prices in this scheme are independent of
             | Nestle's prices.
             | 
             | However, high Nestle prices are a big incentive for someone
             | to be W0.
        
             | ttfkam wrote:
             | Not just in Africa. There was a huge ad campaign in the US
             | a few decades ago implying that Enfamil and Similac were
             | healthier options than breast feeding. This was pushed
             | especially hard in economically depressed areas that could
             | least afford it.
             | 
             | Not altogether unlike the ad campaigns convincing folks
             | that (free) water with a meal was vaguely wrong. "By they
             | way," they said, "we've got some special brown water with a
             | fukton of added sugar and CO2 for sale instead!"
        
               | rootusrootus wrote:
               | > This was pushed especially hard in economically
               | depressed areas that could least afford it.
               | 
               | An interesting choice for a company trying to maximize
               | profits.
        
             | matheusmoreira wrote:
             | That is seriously disgusting. They're sacrificing a baby's
             | health for profit. Do they have no limits?
        
               | golergka wrote:
               | Why do you put blame on the company who offers the choice
               | to the mother and not on her for making that choice? If
               | the mother in question would choose not to consume the
               | product, the mere existence of the offer wouldn't make
               | her life worse in any way.
        
               | WaxProlix wrote:
               | Probably the vast misinformation campaign explicitly
               | targeting vulnerable and undereducated people claiming
               | that Nestle formula was superior to breast milk and would
               | give their children a better shot at success in life.
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | Because they're straight up lying when they say it's
               | better than breast feeding. Encouraging mothers to breast
               | feed is hard enough as it is, we really don't need some
               | idiotic company spending millions in deceptive marketing
               | designed to get them to stop lactating and become
               | dependent on their products. This caliber of sociopathy
               | is unacceptable no matter how they spin it.
        
               | lbrito wrote:
               | Wow, this is Peak HN 2022.
               | 
               | Why blame England for the Opium Wars? Couldn't the
               | Chinese just take less opium?
               | 
               | Why blame big pharma for the opioid epidemic? Couldn't
               | people not take opioids?
               | 
               | Why blame cigarette advertisement for lung cancer? Can't
               | people not smoke?
        
           | chrischen wrote:
           | The worst is that a country like China does regular business
           | with them (for better or for worse) and we (US) criticize
           | them for political reasons with no regard to whether it's
           | good for Africa or not, just whether it's good for us
           | (politically that is--to criticize Chinese influence/power).
        
           | zelon88 wrote:
           | On the other side of the coin then you would have African
           | STEM working on trying to find enough recycled soap. That
           | would probably be problematic because the ratio of supply
           | from hospitality can't touch the backlog of demand caused by
           | poverty. So you provide them the soap and that's one less
           | obstacle standing in their way as they tackle more actionable
           | problems.
        
         | budu3 wrote:
         | In fact West African countries have a centuries old method of
         | making soap from locally available material.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_black_soap
        
           | Scoundreller wrote:
           | While the base (ash in this case) can be locally produced,
           | africa as a continent isn't a big edible oil
           | producer/exporter, and that's usually the expensive part in
           | soapmaking.
           | 
           | And one could argue that plant ash isn't the most sustainable
           | source of base in making soap.
        
         | twobitshifter wrote:
         | I picked up on the 60% reduction point too. He got the idea in
         | 2008 and looking at the chart you see the trend is constant
         | over the last 30 years, so we can't see any impact from their
         | work in the plot. That's not to say they haven't helped to
         | improve hygiene, but maybe hygiene would have been improved by
         | other means (local soap, other NGOs, general sanitation)
        
         | Vinnl wrote:
         | > Still, even the 60% reduction in such deaths over 20 years
         | alone is pretty great and I hadn't known about it!
         | 
         | If you're interested about lots more statistics about how
         | things have majorly improved in fairly recent history in lots
         | of areas, albeit with lots of caveats about how there's
         | certainly still more work to do, I can highly recommend Hans
         | Rosling's book _Factfulness_.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | dnhz wrote:
       | 84% of guests use the TV? I thought hotels were for visiting
       | somewhere.
        
         | pc86 wrote:
         | What a strange, backward take-away. This 84% will include
         | people who watch 15 minutes of TV before going to bed, or
         | people who put on the news while they're getting ready in the
         | morning. Not sure why you would take it to assume people are
         | watching 12 hours of TV on vacation.
        
       | sp332 wrote:
       | So 4 people doing all the work by hand could do 500 bars a day.
       | But now it takes 20,000 volunteers and they've made 68,000,000
       | bars, so only about 6 days worth of work per volunteer total?
        
         | pc86 wrote:
         | Most volunteers are probably doing an hour or two at a time,
         | and probably slower/worse than this guy's four close friends
         | that were grinding through it. I would think some volunteers
         | are doing other stuff as well.
        
           | robjan wrote:
           | The volunteers are usually half day corporate team building
           | events. The company pays a fee and the staff provide
           | "voluntary service", photos are then taken and shared on
           | social media.
        
       | rrosen326 wrote:
       | I think this is such a clever use of capitalism for positive
       | purpose. I've worked with Eco-Soap Bank
       | (https://ecosoapbank.org/) mentioned in the article. So great.
        
       | ck2 wrote:
       | The bleaching process kills every known bacteria and virus right?
       | 
       | Because people are nasty AF, guaranteed STDs at a minimum on some
       | of those.
       | 
       | As long as that process can never fail, this all sounds good,
       | just amazed the hotels actually pay for it, good on them.
        
         | Scoundreller wrote:
         | The heat required to just start the melting (~60C) will kill
         | those. Viruses very easily before that temperature, and after a
         | few minutes for bacteria.
         | 
         | Fungal spores won't be killed, but that's usually less of a
         | concern.
        
       | air7 wrote:
       | It's an interesting read, but the actual answer to what is the
       | afterlife of hotel soap is a land fill...
        
       | Scoundreller wrote:
       | I've always taken it home. Funny since I always assumed each
       | hotel was just melting it down and recasting them.
        
         | yftsui wrote:
         | I started doing the same after seeing room keepers just throw
         | them to the trash back in 2019. They lasts way longer than I
         | expected - I haven't bought any soap for over 2 years despite
         | my travel is very limited(due to the pandemic), but I still
         | have some remaining. Pandemic is over and traveling is starting
         | again, I guess I'll never able to use up all of them.
        
       | iso1210 wrote:
       | > 86% of guests who stay at a hotel for 1-2 nights use it
       | 
       | 14% of guests do not use soap?
       | 
       | I can understand people bringing their own stuff for the shower,
       | but 1 in 7 people bring their own soap for washing their hands?!
       | 
       | But them I'm amazed people use TVs too. I stayed in a hotel about
       | 50 times in the last year, I've never turned on the TV.
       | 
       | I'm currently staying in a hotel in Paris, room service are
       | replacing the bar of soap every day. It's ridiculous.
        
         | Helitioo wrote:
         | I'm more surprised by how many use the closet
        
           | unstatusthequo wrote:
           | If you have a suit or dress, the closet is a requirement to
           | hang clothes so they aren't folded and get wrinkles. Also,
           | the iron is nice for a crisp shirt and slacks.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | I hang most everything in the bathroom so the steam from
             | the shower helps remove wrinkles.
        
         | kayodelycaon wrote:
         | I bring my own soap for hand washing because hotel soap does
         | bad things to my skin.
        
         | kzrdude wrote:
         | The TV might be useful for Netflix. I found Netflix already
         | logged-in by a previous guest in the hotel I last stayed in...
         | just shows that it is used.
        
         | 8b16380d wrote:
         | It seems realistic that 14% of people would have their own
         | soap.
        
           | iso1210 wrote:
           | Do 1 in 7 people use their own soap in office restrooms?
        
             | MiddleEndian wrote:
             | I've considered it. Most office soap smells so bad. With
             | the exception of Microsoft's soap. It's been close to ten
             | years since I worked there, but I can still remember how
             | good their hand soap smelled.
        
             | Tao331 wrote:
             | I can't remember the last time I used an office restroom.
        
               | tamaharbor wrote:
               | Your prostate (if you are a male) is apparently still the
               | correct size.
        
             | jagged-chisel wrote:
             | Office restrooms have a completely different use case -
             | they're not trying to turn over occupancy as quickly and
             | cheaply as possible. And none of the office restrooms I've
             | been in have ever used bar soap. And I have input into my
             | office building's selection - I get to complain to the
             | office manager who can then complain to the building
             | management. The result is, typically, some hypoallergenic
             | liquid or foam that doesn't over-dry most people's skin, so
             | they have little reason to bring their own.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | In small offices if someone has a preference on soap they
             | can usually get the office to stock theirs or at least
             | bring it in.
             | 
             | And based on what I've seen, the numbers are about right.
             | 
             | Add in those who basically never use the hotel room but to
             | sleep and you can get the one in seven.
        
         | ratww wrote:
         | I bring my own soap for the shower, as the one provided by
         | hotels often doesn't really clean well, neither smells really
         | good. It does double-duty as soap for the hands, since it's
         | higher quality than whatever most hotels have.
        
         | joshmlewis wrote:
         | My wife packs our own soaps for shower but we use the hotel
         | soap for hand washing.
        
         | InCityDreams wrote:
         | I especially turn on the tv in foreign countries...gives a vibe
         | for the place.
        
           | dazc wrote:
           | Usally a shocking vibe as to how many ads people will
           | tolerate.
        
             | Scoundreller wrote:
             | Provides an interesting insight into a show's viewership
             | and who's winning the auction ad budgets.
             | 
             | This is even more fun if you can't understand anything.
        
         | nathanaldensr wrote:
         | Hotel soap is gross because hotels invariably have super-soft
         | water. Bar soap leaves a nasty film all over one's skin. I
         | always bring my own shampoo and soap dispenser due to this.
        
           | mikequinlan wrote:
           | If the soap is leaving a film, the water is hard not soft.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | A crust is hard water, slipperiness you can't get rid of is
             | soft.
             | 
             | https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/why-does-it-take-so-long-rinse-
             | soa...
        
         | seaman1921 wrote:
         | You stayed 50 times in hotels in 1 year and you think the new
         | soaps are the problem. That is funny. Compare your own carbon
         | footprint to a person from 3rd world country if you want to
         | talk about ridiculous.
        
         | kotaKat wrote:
         | If I'm staying at a hotel for multiple days, I like to stop at
         | a nearby store and get full size toiletries. (Maybe even some
         | bubble bath or something to unwind, and some snacks to save on
         | using the hotel market.)
         | 
         | I'd rather use that then try to fumble with the often tiny
         | bottles of soap that are either hard to pry the cap open on or
         | barely have enough soap in the bottle for a single day. Plus I
         | can grab a cheap loofah, too.
        
         | refactor_master wrote:
         | Well the TVs are for ants. At that distance my phone provides
         | more view per distance. And Netflix.
        
         | dazc wrote:
         | I wouldn't be surprised if most of those 14% of people who
         | don't use hotel soap for washing their hands are people who
         | don't wash their hands anywhere else either.
        
         | pc86 wrote:
         | I had a week long business trip where I was literally only in
         | the hotel long enough to sleep before getting up, showering,
         | and leaving for the day, so I never used any of the hand soap.
         | I did go through several of the travel sized shampoo and body
         | washes they had in the shower, though.
        
         | Symbiote wrote:
         | I avoid waste, so if I haven't brought my own toiletries I'll
         | use the shower gel to wash my hands.
         | 
         | It's essentially the same stuff.
        
       | edge17 wrote:
       | Now do it with ketchup packets.
        
         | Tao331 wrote:
         | I wouldn't be surprised if restaurants found a way. I've seen
         | folks go to great lengths to "marry" half-empty ketchup
         | bottles.
        
       | aaron695 wrote:
       | Soap costs fuck all to produce.
       | 
       | And can be done in country furthering local industry.
       | 
       | Less than $2 a kg - https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/new-
       | arrival-soap-bath...
       | 
       | Soap is so cheap it's not about people needing donations, it's
       | about people needing training in using it... and clean water.
       | 
       | But that's HN it's all about feeling good about using the word
       | recycling. Soap is not even a landfill issue. It just degrades to
       | nothing. But we better burn fuel so we get to say recycling.
        
       | mayankkaizen wrote:
       | I hate to admit that I always 'steal' those little soap. And the
       | reason I give myself that they are going to throw it anyway so
       | why not keep it?
        
       | smileysteve wrote:
       | Trash pickup is too cheap / Recycling too expensive and this is a
       | great case;
       | 
       | The remainder soap creates a valuable commodity at a small cost
       | of the original, but hotels (or their toiletry suppliers) aren't
       | solving this on their own (a potential revenue stream).
       | 
       | How do we connect the dots?
       | 
       | I say this as US jurisdictions are cutting (resident paid)
       | recycling programs because of the high cost of sorting plastic;
       | while the US experiences cardboard shortages, metal shortages (as
       | old vehicles waste yards) - in the midst of climate change pacts.
       | 
       | OR, as few jurisdictions implement composting programs where 40%
       | of landfill waste is likely compostable. (and there is a market
       | for curbside compost companies, where consumers are paying $40/mo
       | though the output is very valuable)
        
         | 7952 wrote:
         | Surely the solution is liquid products in larger squirty
         | containers.
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | Recycling being too expensive can also be a sign that it isn't
         | worth it.
         | 
         | This only works because it's subsidized from all ends: the
         | hotels are subsidizing it to get some PR out of it, and 20k
         | volunteers are subsidizing it with free labor (according to the
         | article).
         | 
         | Soap is cheap. I can buy ~400 g of soap for a dollar, at retail
         | prices. This covers the entire supply chain to produce it, get
         | it to the store, and sell it to me, and the price isn't just
         | the price, it's also a rough indicator for the effort and to
         | some extent the environmental impact.
         | 
         | I wouldn't be surprised if the shipping, the production
         | facilities, the fuel for the volunteers commuting etc. made
         | this a net-negative (compared to throwing out the leftovers and
         | making new soap at industrial scale) not just economically, but
         | also for the environment.
        
           | JohnBooty wrote:
           | Yeah, if they are transporting this stuff _halfway around the
           | world?_ I can 't believe this is a net win.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | Recycling was a scam invented to pretend plastic is acceptable.
         | 
         | We should straight up give up on much of recycling and go back
         | to focusing on the recycling that matters and is worthwhile,
         | and begin to heap scorn on plastics the same way we have done
         | on styrofoam (remember when every big Mac came in it's own
         | styrofoam container?).
        
           | syshum wrote:
           | I am not replacing my paper wrapped plastic straw for a
           | plastic wrapped paper straw......
           | 
           | For styrofoam, It was not shame, or environmentalism that
           | caused that change it is price and convenience.
           | 
           | styrofoam sucked for most of the uses in fast food. Plastic
           | and Plastic coated paper, was cheaper, more durable, and
           | preferred by most customers.
           | 
           | Want to stop plastic, invent something better. Something that
           | does not break down in liquid or grease...
        
           | mgdlbp wrote:
           | Styrofoam almost perfectly demonstrates the issues of
           | recyclability and suitability for food containers that also
           | apply to plastics in general:
           | 
           | (Note that what we generically call _styrofoam_ is expanded
           | polystyrene (XPS), which isn 't quite the same material as
           | the original 'Styrofoam' brand of _extruded_ polystyrene
           | (EPS) insulation board. The commonality is the polymer they
           | 're made from, polystyrene (PS), which is also used as
           | "normal" moulded plastic.)
           | 
           | Virtually no polystyrene foam is recycled (and most municipal
           | recycling rejects PS entirely). This is because of the same
           | economic unviability of recycling that plagues most plastics,
           | just greatly exacerbated by the low density of foams.
           | Similarly, the issue with Styrofoam food containers is much
           | more immediate than microplastics in general: PS releases its
           | toxic monomer styrene when heated, which just about makes
           | coffee cups and fast food containers its _worst_ possible use
           | case. But the low price and insulative properties of the foam
           | render it popular still in jurisdictions where it 's legal.
           | 
           | Also: Rigid polystyrene is used in food containers, too
           | (e.g., yoghurt containers and disposable plastic cups). And
           | another popular polymer, ABS, also contains styrene (hence
           | the recommendation for ventilation when 3D printing it).
        
             | kwhitefoot wrote:
             | This is easy to fix if the political will is there. In
             | Norway yoghurt containers, etc., are made of polypropylene
             | not polystyrene
        
             | Reason077 wrote:
             | > _" Virtually no polystyrene foam is recycled"_
             | 
             | Sadly this doesn't seem stop people from jamming up our
             | building's recycling bins with tons of the stuff. Or IKEA,
             | Samsung, and their ilk from producing tons of it to use in
             | product packaging. Horrible stuff!
        
               | gernb wrote:
               | Isn't that changing?
               | 
               | https://www.intelligentliving.co/ikea-mushroom-based-
               | packagi...
        
               | Reason077 wrote:
               | Hopefully - I might be being a bit harsh on IKEA
               | specifically. There's certainly a lot of "IKEA-like
               | furniture" PS foam packaging out there that I often see
               | overflowing the recycling.
        
               | Ekaros wrote:
               | Most of the stuff I have bought from Ikea seem to be
               | mostly carboard packaging. Which isn't actually that
               | horrible for recycling when it is uncontaminated like
               | stuff used for flatpack furniture is.
        
               | midasuni wrote:
               | I haven't had an ikea box with polystyrene for years
        
             | smileysteve wrote:
             | Though it depends on the target. Polystyrene requires less
             | water and energy that cardboard or injection molded
             | plastics; and protects goods better. (Egg transportation
             | has been studied)
             | 
             | On eggs: Polystyrene is also very reusable and recyclable
             | in sorted recycling (aka taking back to the grocery store)
        
             | Reason077 wrote:
             | > _" PS releases its toxic monomer styrene when heated,
             | which just about makes coffee cups and fast food containers
             | its worst possible use case."_
             | 
             | Better or worse than paper-based cups and food packaging
             | laced with PFAS ("forever" fluorochemicals) to make them
             | waterproof and greaseproof?
        
           | smileysteve wrote:
           | > Recycling was a scam
           | 
           | But this generalization is incorrect. Aluminum, cardboard,
           | steel are easy to transport and recycle. Glass is too.
        
           | inglor_cz wrote:
           | I think that plastic recycling wasn't an invented scam,
           | rather a bad generalization of previous recycling systems.
           | Rags, metal, paper, glass can be reasonably recycled or at
           | least processed into something else (rags into paper) and
           | this has been done for centuries. It must have felt natural
           | to add yet another material category to this list.
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | Plastic recycling is worse than a scam - the process actually
           | releases more carbon (mostly co2) into the atmosphere than
           | creating a new plastic item. I've heard that it was widely
           | implemented to "promote awareness". And the worst part?
           | People who drive gasoline vehicles to bring their plastic
           | recyclables to the recycling center.
        
             | PolygonSheep wrote:
             | My question for plastic recycling is: if it's so difficult
             | to recycle why not just landfill it? It can't create
             | microplastics, harm wildlife, or float around in the ocean
             | if it's buried inland under feet of dirt.
             | 
             | I mean yeah it would be much better if we didn't use it at
             | all but I don't think that genie is going back in the
             | bottle anytime soon.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | Landfilling or incinerating are some of the best uses,
               | but they sound bad.
               | 
               | Better would be to replace as many places where it's used
               | as possible with other materials.
        
               | gruez wrote:
               | >My question for plastic recycling is: if it's so
               | difficult to recycle why not just landfill it?
               | 
               | Probably because of public unease about sustainability,
               | specifically running out of landfills.
               | 
               | >GONZALEZ: There were all these stats coming out at the
               | time that showed that the number of landfills in America
               | was plummeting. Landfills were closing, and people kept
               | citing these stats in stories about the garbage barge.
               | 
               | >KINNAMAN: And so people put it all together, and in
               | their minds, the conclusion was that the United States is
               | running out of landfill space. The United States was full
               | - that we couldn't store any more.
               | 
               | Of course, that was never going to happen.
               | 
               | >And even hardcore environmentalists reluctantly agree
               | that, yeah, we have a lot of space left. But people
               | thought we were running out of space, and that was what
               | mattered.
        
               | dotancohen wrote:
               | Or reuse it.
               | 
               | I'm right now drinking from a bottle that's been filled
               | dozens of times. And the best feature of a reused bottle
               | is that it has less aromatics to leach out than the
               | newly-manufactured bottles have - they've already leached
               | out.
        
               | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
               | I don't know... I think over time plastic tends to become
               | brittle due to UV exposure, temperature cycling,
               | degradation of plasticizers. etc. So I would expect it to
               | release more and more microplastics.
        
               | gernb wrote:
               | Are plastic cutting boards a net win (less bacteria?) or
               | a net loss (adding shavings of plastic to cooking)?
        
               | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
               | Cutting Boards of Plastic and Wood Contaminated
               | Experimentally with Bacteria
               | (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31113021/)
               | 
               | "Bacteria inoculated onto Plastic blocks were readily
               | recovered for minutes to hours and would multiply if held
               | overnight. Recoveries from wooden blocks were generally
               | less than those from plastic blocks, regardless of new or
               | used status; differences increased with holding time."
               | 
               | So plastic gives you _more_ bacteria, _and_ plastic
               | shavings. Stick to wood.
        
               | jffry wrote:
               | > So plastic gives you more bacteria, and plastic
               | shavings. Stick to wood.
               | 
               | I think that's a little ambitious of a conclusion given
               | that the study you cited didn't (at least as described in
               | the abstract) involve cleaning.
               | 
               | My thick HDPE boards can survive the dishwasher's high
               | temperature cycle without warping, and the HDPE is better
               | for my knives.
               | 
               | I do cut down on washing by using the same cutting board
               | for produce and meats, but raw meat is always the last
               | thing on the board before cleaning.
        
               | dotancohen wrote:
               | Note that the lignin in the wood is horrible for the
               | cutting edge. Knives on wood need far more frequent
               | sharpening. But in my opinion it is a good trade off.
               | 
               | Note to use solid wood. I've seen cutting blocks of wood
               | strips glued together - impossible to clean and easy to
               | warp. All the disadvantages of every type of cutting
               | board in one overpriced scrap ))
        
               | PolygonSheep wrote:
               | Reuse is good but it's also kinda hard in two ways I've
               | found: you will accumulate too many "reusable" plastic
               | items (one or two coke bottles you reuse is fine, but
               | what are you going to do with twenty?), and also some are
               | tricky to reuse (how do I reuse my candy bar wrapper or
               | shrink wrap my item came packaged in?)
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | analog31 wrote:
         | Soap is artificially cheap too, because it's a byproduct of
         | meat production. If I wanted to think ecologically about soap,
         | I'd think about its source.
         | 
         | I use hotel soap, but would have utterly no problem bringing a
         | tiny amount of body wash with me. I already use liquid body
         | wash at home because I live in a region with hard water, and
         | soap turns into soap scum.
        
           | jhenkens wrote:
           | Never thought of liquid soap as being less cleaning due to
           | soap scum. Interesting. I used Dr Bronners Peppermint for
           | scalp-to-toes cleansing for nearly a decade, but switched to
           | bar soap around the start of the pandemic when I moved to
           | somewhere where it wasn't easy to get (either in store, or
           | stuff shipped to the house, pretty remote, snowy location
           | without delivery access during the winter months).
           | 
           | I now live in a much more urban area, but am trying to reduce
           | unnecessary plastic consumption - not to the extent of being
           | "trash-free", but instead in the sense of trying to support
           | alternatives, so that it becomes more standard/easy to
           | access. There are stores with bulk dispensers of a variety of
           | cleaning products near me. I may consider switching back for
           | my home shower usage.
        
             | analog31 wrote:
             | You used to be able to get bar "soap" that was based on
             | detergent, not soap. Detergent is identified by things like
             | sodium lauryl sulfate etc. Remember "you're not really
             | clean until you're Zest-fully clean." because Zest was made
             | from detergent.
             | 
             | Soap is listed in the ingredients as being based on tallow
             | or lard. When my family moved to a hard-water region, I
             | looked at ingredient labels, and discovered that you can't
             | buy detergent based "soap" any more -- even Zest is based
             | on soap. This could be due to a glut of those materials
             | triggered by rising meat production.
             | 
             | So we switched to liquid hand and body wash, which is
             | detergent based. It's not as luxurious as soap, but I'm the
             | one who cleans the bathrooms, so I make the rules.
             | 
             | Soap scum is calcium stearate, which is not soluble in
             | water, and remarkably difficult to remove from the inside
             | of bathtubs and showers. And your water softener has to
             | work remarkably well to completely eliminate soap scum.
        
               | jdswain wrote:
               | Some people have problems with sodium lauryl sulfate. In
               | toothpaste it gives me mouth ulcers, and in soap I get
               | skin irritation. It's quite hard to find SLS free
               | toothpaste, or even shampoo, but it could be worth trying
               | if you have unexplained skin irritation. I haven't had
               | one ulcer since swapping toothpaste and before that I was
               | getting them all the time.
        
           | gruez wrote:
           | >Soap is artificially cheap too, because it's a byproduct of
           | meat production
           | 
           | source? I know it might traditionally be made from animal
           | fats, but the cheap soaps seem to use SLS, which wikipedia
           | describes as "derived from palm kernel oil or coconut oil"
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | danachow wrote:
             | SLS is a detergent not a soap.
             | 
             | Look at the ingredients in a soap like ivory or zest (which
             | used to be a detergent until 2008), or Irish spring (which
             | I like, but is definitely a cheap soap) - the first one
             | will be sodium palmitate or tallowate.
        
               | gruez wrote:
               | > SLS is a detergent not a soap.
               | 
               | That's technically correct but colloquially those are
               | interchangeable, eg. dish "soap", or liquid hand "soap".
               | 
               | >Look at the ingredients in a soap like ivory or zest
               | (which used to be a detergent until 2008), or Irish
               | spring (which I like, but is definitely a cheap soap) -
               | the first one will be sodium palmitate or tallowate.
               | 
               | After checking the ingredient lists of body washes/hand
               | soaps on amazon, this seems to be limited to solid soaps.
               | I suppose it still means the parent post's point is true
               | (ie. solid soaps are artificially cheaper because of
               | animal fat), but in the context of this story it doesn't
               | matter much. Liquid soaps are more popular than solid
               | soaps[1], except in low income countries where they're
               | more popular because they're cheaper[2]. In my experience
               | liquid soaps are at least as popular as solid soaps in
               | hotels, so it's safe to assume they're willing to fork
               | over money for non-subsidized soap (ie. liquid soaps) and
               | the animal subsidy isn't something that's driving hotel
               | soap waste.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/40-billion-
               | worldwid...
               | 
               | [2] https://www.reportlinker.com/p05916773/UAE-Soap-
               | Market-By-Fo...
        
       | bradgranath wrote:
       | Jesus this is gross. If you like the soap so much sell it back
       | the hotels.
        
         | xcambar wrote:
         | somehow your comment reminded me of Fight Club.
        
       | candiddevmike wrote:
       | This is an ad for a startup, what really happens to used hotel
       | soap is it goes into a landfill (which isn't surprising). A
       | startup is trying to recycle it.
        
         | kzrdude wrote:
         | While it is an "ad", I don't think it's fair to call it a
         | startup since their work has already become established, and
         | they've been running since 2009, for example they say they
         | produced 68 million bars of soap.
        
         | gruez wrote:
         | Ah yes, the good old submarine.
         | 
         | http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
        
       | Gimpei wrote:
       | Missing from this story is any evidence that the soap they're
       | providing is actually helping. It would be nice to see some sort
       | of RCT where free soap was compared with the benefit from selling
       | the recycled soap and then just giving people the proceeds.
        
       | thom wrote:
       | Ahem, are my wife and I the only ones who just keep all the
       | toiletries from hotels and use them at home or on future
       | holidays?
        
         | comprev wrote:
         | Found Ross from Friends!
        
           | davrosthedalek wrote:
           | But the batteries!
        
         | ck45 wrote:
         | No, you are not the only ones. When we are on a multiple
         | destination trip (our standard way of travelling), I take the
         | opened soap to the next accomodation(s) and use it before
         | opening any new ones.
        
       | Tade0 wrote:
       | Those tiny hotel soaps are just the peak of the iceberg.
       | 
       | My SO used to work seasonally in a hostel in Venice. People leave
       | _a lot_ of half-used shower gel bottles, soaps, makeup products
       | etc.
       | 
       | It got to a point where the staff just put all the products which
       | were safe to use(laundry detergent, shower gels, spray deodorant,
       | shaving foam) in an unoccupied room referred to as "the Rossmann"
       | (popular drugstore chain in some European countries) from which
       | everyone in the know was at liberty to take as much as they
       | wished.
       | 
       | A fraction of the goods were originally found unopened.
        
         | nicbou wrote:
         | I frequently contribute to the Rossman. I made it up to 4 weeks
         | without forgetting my shampoo bottle, but that's my record.
        
           | Tade0 wrote:
           | Minimum wage hospitality workers appreciate your
           | contribution.
           | 
           | Considering that due to a loophole(qualifying work spanning
           | less than three months as a "business trip") they were paid
           | the _Polish_ , not Italian minimum wage, those EUR2 worth of
           | shower gel went a long way.
        
         | bonestamp2 wrote:
         | I used to travel every week for work. I became obvious that
         | hotels should just use liquid soap instead of bars. Many indeed
         | do this now, including large refillable dispensers for shampoo,
         | conditioner and body wash/gel. With the amount saved, we can
         | probably provide lots of the same to poor countries too.
        
       | virtuabhi wrote:
       | "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" -- in the order of priority. Why select
       | Recycle when alternatives are simple and viable?
       | As the largest hotel soap recycler in the world, Clean the World
       | has helped lead to a 60%+ reduction in the number of children who
       | die from diarrheal diseases each year.
       | 
       | Wow, casually overclaiming their ~0% impact. No doubt these folks
       | are getting all the grants and we are discussing them here.
        
       | shannifin wrote:
       | I remember seeing this story on Youtube a couple years ago...
       | https://youtu.be/49oZt8Sl-JA
        
       | Jiro wrote:
       | >That means that, in normal times, hotels go through ~3.3m bars
       | of soap every day.
       | 
       | ...
       | 
       | >Every year, it has been estimated that the hospitality industry
       | generates ~440B pounds of solid waste -- much of it soap and
       | bottled amenities.
       | 
       | Innumeracy.
       | 
       | Based on these numbers, and assuming a bar of hotel soap is 2
       | ounces, that means that bars of soap are 3.3 * 365 / 1000
       | (millions in a billion) / 8 / 440 or about 0.03 percent of the
       | solid waste generated by hotels. "Much of it" indeed.
        
       | caymanjim wrote:
       | This is a poor use of resources. Sending anything but money to
       | places in need is just wasteful. This soap effort is not
       | efficient. The expense of collecting the soap, refining it in a
       | garage (including cost of the equipment), and delivering it to
       | the recipients is almost certainly vastly more than if they'd
       | just sent cash and bought brand new soap local to the recipients.
       | And that's not even factoring in the labor of the people doing
       | it. This is another feel-good measure that is economically
       | stupid, and whose primary purpose is to make the volunteers feel
       | good about themselves. That's fine, if that's what they want to
       | do with their time and money. But no one should help them by
       | donating. It's far better to donate your cash to people that make
       | efficient use of it.
        
         | jrochkind1 wrote:
         | > whose primary purpose is to make the volunteers feel good
         | about themselves.
         | 
         | Or to give jobs to people employed by the organization doing
         | all this. :(
         | 
         | I'm not saying that's the conscious goal of the organizers or
         | staff, who I'm sure are well-intentioned. But if you were an
         | imaginary "alien anthropologist" looking at the actual outcomes
         | of so much "philanthropy" in our world and assuming that the
         | outcomes represent the purpose, i think you might determine
         | that the main point of it all is to provide professional jobs
         | to people in already relatively wealthy communities. :(
        
         | pipeline_peak wrote:
         | You're missing the whole environmental concern. All this soap
         | gets discarded into a landfill. Not all of the thousands of
         | different hotel bar soap brands are biodegradable. Certainly
         | not the ones with plastic packaging.
        
           | caymanjim wrote:
           | What does packaging have to do with it? The unopened bars are
           | simply left for the next guest. The packaging from the opened
           | ones is already headed to the landfill. This doesn't change
           | that equation at all. The reduction of soap bars headed to
           | the landfill is infinitesimally small, and there's an
           | environmental cost to their inefficient small-scale facility
           | and inefficient delivery mechanism to ship their product to
           | end users. It may be that there's a tiny little net positive
           | environmental effect, but I seriously doubt it. And
           | environmental benefits are an after-the-fact justification,
           | not one of the primary motivators.
           | 
           | This is feel-good whitewashing. There are better things to
           | do. Stop the waste at the source with refillable dispensers.
           | Mandate better packaging or eliminate the packaging entirely.
           | 
           | The problem with things like this is that they make people
           | feel better, make it seem as though something is being done,
           | but don't actually do anything good, and for the cost, are
           | worse than the alternatives. Manufacturers don't have to
           | change packaging and hotels don't have to reduce waste,
           | because for pennies on the dollar, they can point at a
           | program like this, get a PR win, and claim they're doing
           | something. It's not a viable business model, it's not in the
           | best interest of those who ultimately benefit, but it makes
           | "us" feel better and it makes the hotels look better.
        
             | pipeline_peak wrote:
             | >"Seipler did some back-of-the-napkin math and realized
             | that millions of bars of perfectly salvageable soap were
             | going to waste.".
             | 
             | >"Its biggest partner, Hilton, which signed on all of its
             | worldwide locations in 2019, has contributed 14.5m bars of
             | soap in less than 3 years."
             | 
             | >"hotels go through ~3.3m bars of soap every day."
             | 
             | That sounds like a primary environmental concern and a
             | pretty large one at that.
             | 
             | >"Stop the waste at the source with refillable dispensers.
             | Mandate better packaging or eliminate the packaging
             | entirely"
             | 
             | The hotel industry has virtually no interest into
             | committing to any these changes because they generate so
             | little PR value. No one's going to Embassy Suites because
             | they care about the environment. This solution is at the
             | very least a passive opportunity for companies like Hilton,
             | to reduce waste.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | gruez wrote:
           | >Not all of the thousands of different hotel bar soap brands
           | are biodegradable
           | 
           | And? Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Are we going to be
           | running out of landfill space any time soon?
        
           | kwhitefoot wrote:
           | > All this soap gets discarded into a landfill.
           | 
           | Commercial entities have to pay for their waste to be taken
           | away where I am so they make at least some feeble attempts at
           | reducing waste. Just rack up the price of landfill until no
           | one will pay to use it or just forbid landfill for pretty
           | much everything and you will solve that problem and generate
           | business opportunities for new solutions.
        
             | gruez wrote:
             | >you will solve that problem and generate business
             | opportunities for new solutions.
             | 
             | You might "solve" the problem of landfills being used, at
             | the expense of additional resources (eg. labor, energy,
             | capital) being devoted to doing the same stuff (ie. getting
             | rid of waste). I'm skeptical the trade-off is worth it,
             | considering that soap isn't super toxic, landfills are
             | lined anyways, and that we're not exactly running out of
             | landfill space any time soon.
        
       | fortran77 wrote:
       | I can't help but react with "eeew!" You never really know where
       | that bar of soap has been, regardless of how well they "scrape"
       | the outer surface.
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | > 86% of guests who stay at a hotel for 1-2 nights use it,
       | handily outranking other popular offerings like the in-room TV
       | (84%)...
       | 
       | This is extremely nit-picky, but I wouldn't use the word
       | "handily" here. "Slightly" is a better word for a 2% difference.
       | The next most popular option was at 81%.
       | 
       | Another nit-pick is the part where they say hotels throw away
       | "~440B pounds of solid waste -- much of it soap and bottled
       | amenities". How much of it?
       | 
       | Well, if hotels go through ~3.3m bars of soap every day, and
       | hotel soaps seem to be about .5 oz each, that's 0.03125 pounds *
       | 3.3M * 365 = ~38M pounds a year. That's considerably less than 1%
       | of the total waste thrown away by hotels. I would describe that
       | as "not much of the waste thrown away by hotels".
       | 
       | That doesn't mean it's not a worthy cause to reduce 38 million
       | pounds of waste a year, or to provide hygiene products to people
       | who need them. But, they might as well not exaggerate or
       | overstate the effect as much as they appear to be doing in this
       | article.
        
       | cebert wrote:
       | I've noticed an increasing number of hotels I've stayed at have
       | shower pumps for soap, conditioner, and shampoo. These pumps are
       | locked so that they cannot be easily tampered with. This solution
       | seems much more environmentally friendly. It has the additional
       | benefit that you needn't worry about running out.
        
         | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
         | But what if some madman pumps out all the soap, then carefully
         | fills it back with sulphuric acid using a syringe?
        
         | gniv wrote:
         | I remember staying at a (modest) hotel in Netherlands 20+ years
         | ago and seeing this for the first time and thinking what a
         | brilliantly pragmatic idea. It's amazing and sad that it didn't
         | catch on everywhere.
        
           | Tade0 wrote:
           | Ibis Budget has these in some buildings along with built-in
           | hair dryers.
        
           | Reason077 wrote:
           | I stay at a lot of hotels and I'd say it's becoming very
           | common now days, at least in the UK and Europe. Pretty much
           | the norm in all low-to-midrange chains, as well as many
           | independents and even some of the more fancy chains (although
           | I stay in those a lot less often!). There are some surprising
           | exceptions, however: Hilton and Hilton Doubletree still do
           | silly little plastic bottles!
        
             | jjice wrote:
             | Also been seeing this more in the US. It's a welcome
             | change, both for the environment, and a pump is easier to
             | use than travel sized bottles.
             | 
             | I used to pack my own bottles with refillable Nalgene carry
             | on ones, but now that there are the pumps, it reduces
             | travel clutter a bit.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | It's a status thing and it takes time for public perception
             | to change. The hotels have been careful to explain the
             | environmental and carbon benefits everytime they make a
             | change like this - even ten years ago "pump soap" would be
             | considered something you find in a large public restroom,
             | not a fancy hotel.
             | 
             | Even if the hotels are using it as an excuse to save money;
             | good on them. Senseless waste is silly.
        
               | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
               | > explain the environmental and carbon benefits
               | 
               | I'm extremely allergic to seeing these "for the
               | environment" claims, because it's usually obvious they're
               | doing it mainly to save costs. I have no issue with them
               | doing a sensible thing, but I consider lying rude.
        
               | jeromegv wrote:
               | Both can be true. If environmental changes are also
               | financially beneficial, that's the fastest way to drive
               | change. When it's more expensive to be eco-friendly,
               | takes a much longer time.
        
         | 7952 wrote:
         | So much better. I despise those little bottles that never have
         | enough and then are untidy when empty.
        
         | yuuu wrote:
         | What about people who pee on or in them?
        
           | jon-wood wrote:
           | You can't get into the pump, so it's at least impossible to
           | pee in them. I guess you _could_ pee on them, but it would be
           | a pretty high shot, and honestly, why would you?
        
             | dehrmann wrote:
             | It's possible to have pre-filled, sealed bags with pumps.
             | Almost like box wine.
        
             | yardstick wrote:
             | How are they refilled?
             | 
             | Could someone just pee into a cup and from there put into
             | the container?
        
             | moron4hire wrote:
             | Because shitheads exist?
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | How do you know there isn't a shithead at the soap
               | factory?
        
               | moron4hire wrote:
               | That wasn't the question
        
               | yardstick wrote:
               | Maybe not the question but their answer is a good one.
               | Spend all the time worrying about one attack vector when
               | there's dozens of other places along the supply chain
               | where just as nasty or worse things can happen.
        
           | dehrmann wrote:
           | You could almost as easily tamper with a shampoo bottle and
           | leave it make it look unused.
        
           | deschutes wrote:
           | In that case, the soap is the least of your problems.
        
           | Broken_Hippo wrote:
           | At the last hotel I stayed at, peeing on them would be
           | somewhat difficult, though not impossible, especially if you
           | have a penis. Peeing in them would be very difficult indeed
           | as you simply cannot open the top easily.
           | 
           | One solution for body soap is basically a handsoap dispenser
           | with body soap in it - you simply aren't peeing in the bag
           | and there aren't many places to pee into.
           | 
           | On top of it all, someone had to show ID to get access to the
           | hotel room, and you are can very well get charged for such
           | things.
        
         | asperous wrote:
         | Yes, it reminds me of the "Americans designed a pen that can be
         | used in space, Russians just used pencil" joke.
         | 
         | Even though that joke is wrong... graphite breaks off and is a
         | fire hazard... in this case using dispensers seem to eliminate
         | this problem and the massive apparatus used to support it.
         | 
         | Maybe Hilton guests just really like their bar soap? How many
         | people don't bring their own anyway?
        
           | jesperlang wrote:
           | Stepping out of the house I always bring my own unscented
           | soap. Perfume allergy is a reality for thousands of people.
           | If I accidentally wash my hands with scented soap I got 20-30
           | minutes of itchy nose and wheezing before the smell wears off
           | :/
        
             | code_duck wrote:
             | Same here! Accidentally using most commercial restroom soap
             | is almost an emergency for me. It's even a problem to
             | travel in a car with someone else who has washed their
             | hands with it recently. If I get that type of fragrance on
             | my hands I have to wash it off with unscented soap as soon
             | as possible.
        
           | chooseaname wrote:
           | I bring my own because scent is an irritant.
        
           | spacepenisland wrote:
           | I had thought the Russians used grease pencils rather than
           | graphite, yet again inverting common knowledge tropes.
           | 
           | Is that not the case?
        
           | gwbas1c wrote:
           | > How many people don't bring their own anyway?
           | 
           | I never bring my own, because there's always good soap at
           | every hotel. I used to have a soap caddy when I was in
           | college and it got so gross, and was occasionally lost, that
           | I just don't want to deal with it.
           | 
           | I'm picky about shampoo and conditioner, so I bring my own in
           | travel containers.
        
             | nicbou wrote:
             | I always bring my own because there's never good soap. I
             | wear a motorcycle helmet all day for weeks, so I need The
             | Good Shampoo.
        
             | syshum wrote:
             | I just use a 3n1 product that is body wash, shampoo, and
             | conditioner all in one...
             | 
             | Makes like simple, keep in a 3 oz squeeze bottle for
             | airport security theater even though i do not really fly
             | anymore.
        
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