What do hotels do with all the leftover soap? Do they melt it down and remold it? What about half-used shampoo and hand lotion?
Nope. If it’s been opened, they throw it away. If not opened, it’s left for the next guest.
What a disgusting waste!
I agree. I’m sure it would cost more to hire the person, much less buy the equipment, to mold new soap, etc. than you would ever save with hotel soap going for a fast 10 cents a pop (maybe less).
Now I dont feel so bad about stealing them. Anyone ever try the shampoo at Hampton Inn? Niiiiice.
It’s not a waste for the hotel. That is why you are paying $250 a night in a downtown hotel.
But really what is the alternative? You really can’t make the bars any smaller. I guess you could use liquid soap but then the hotel loses a potent form of adevertising. Remember all the unused soap is taken home and boom advertising.
I have worked in the hotel business for 17 years and you don’t STEAL the soap. You pay for a full bar as part of the price of the room. It is YOURS to take.
Saving shards of soap is a crock. You save nothing.
My ex used to want me to “meld” the new soap with the old shard. It never will, because the old one is curved.
So I insisted that to avoid the problem of waste I would collect all the shards under the sink in a tin can and make soap balls out of them when we had $1’s worth.
After years we never had a $1’s worth.
Neener, you’re not trying hard enough.
Dial soap has a perfect shaped concave surface that nests with the used shard almost perfectly. Furthermore, the trick to making them bond for life is, after they’re both wet from use, to squeeze them together, leaving them to dry overnight with the heavy, new bar on top. The weight of the new bar fuses them good.
My husband tried that meld the soap crap on me. I demonstrated how dangerous and painful those slivers could be. If he wants the slivers they are kept far from any place i will ever see.
I am not bothered by the hotel not saving slivers of the soap any more than I am bothered that they just throw out the leftovers on my plate rather than making mulligan soup. Whatever landfill the soap lands up in has worse worries than soap.
I do not steal hotel soap usually. I only take the shampoos if I have used part of the bottle. I do take the little ketchup bottles whether i eat the ketchup or not.
Two nuns are taking a bath.
One says to the other, “Where’s the soap?”
The other replies, “Yes it does, rather!”
We actually tried to research this for a Mailbag question about a year ago, and I called various hotels and asked them. They all said, it’s all thrown out – soap, shampoo, body lotion, whatever, once it’s been opened, it’s tossed.
I thought they’d say that, because who wants to hear that the hotel pours the half-used bottles of shampoo together? (So, if someone spit in the bottle, it’d … ugh!) So I watched the clean-up staff in several hotels (I travel on business a lot), and the soap, shampoo bottles, etc. all went into the same trash bag as all the other trash. Clearly, no separation and no attempt to recycle.
On the other side of the coin, I have stayed at hotels (not many, and all of them outside the U.S.) that had dispensers for liquid soap in the shower, so that there would be less waste.
I stay in hotels and motels fairly frequently (in Canada), and as CKDextHavn suggets, it is becoming more and more common to see liquid soap dispensers both in the shower and by the sink.
I have never considered it “stealing” to take the soap, shampoo, disposable shower cap, shoe shine cloth, or whatever from the hotels. They want you to take it - it’s advertising.
… and a disposable shower cap is great for covering a plate of food, for instance, before putting it in the fridge or microwave. Ready-made Saran Wrap, with an elastic band.
…plus, those Gideon Bibles make great fire-starters.
My company actually has a program where you are encouraged to bring back your soaps, shampoos, etc., when you travel, interoffice them in a zip lock bag, and the aforementioned are then donated to homeless shelters.
Not a bad idea, really…