The Modern Hotelier #99: Recycling Soap and Saving Lives with Clean the World CEO & President Shawn Seipler
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Steve Carran: Welcome back to The Modern Hotelier. We are excited to release this episode with Sean Seipler, CEO, president, and founder of Clean the World. David, what were some of your takeaways from this episode?
David: Yeah, the biggest thing is how they're impacting, you know, the world through hospitality and sustainability. And, you know, I feel that we always hear people talking about it. We see panels, we see press releases, but this is an organization that's actually not only taking action, but reporting on that action.
And I thought it was extremely impressive.
Steve Carran: I agree. I think Sean's one of probably one of the most knowledgeable people. We have talked about not only plastics, but sustainability in general. And I guess it was a, it was a education session for me with the small plastics and things like that. And I love what they're doing. Not only what he said, sustainability isn't only about products and things like that.
It's also about people. And man, that that line just hit home for me. So enjoy this episode. There are a lot of good nuggets in here. And yeah, enjoy.
David: Enjoy.

David: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier. I'm your host, David Millili.
Steve Carran: I'm your co-host, Steve.
Jon Bumhoffer: And I'm the producer, Jon Bumhoffer.
David: Steve, who do we have on the program today?
Steve Carran: Yeah, David, today we have on Sean Sipler. Sean is the founder, CEO, and president of Clean the World. Sean is committed to focusing his business, management, and leadership skills on advancing humanitarian, social, and environmental causes. Clean the World is a social enterprise that offers sustainable, socially responsible programs to the hospitality and meetings industry.
Is he gone?
Shawn Seipler: Thank you for having me. very much looking forward to this, and uh, appreciate you guys having us on.
David: All right, great. So we're going to go through a couple of different areas. We're going to go through a lightning round of questions, get to know about your background, your career, then dive into some industry topics. Sound good?
Shawn Seipler: That sounds good.
David: What was the first job you ever had?
Shawn Seipler: Subway. Uh, 15, Mundelein, Illinois. I was a sandwich artist.
David: right, cool. What's something that you wish you were better at?
Shawn Seipler: Patience. I have become better with patience over time. Uh, and then golf. I was much better at golf.
David: All right, cool. Did you have a role model growing up?
Shawn Seipler: My father, yeah, without a doubt.
David: And what's a luxury you can't live without?
Shawn Seipler: In Central Florida, uh, air conditioning.
David: Right, that's a popular one this summer. If you had your own late night talk show, and you were the host, who would your first guest be? 
Shawn Seipler: I would advocate for my father. The producers would probably say no. So if I had to go sort of for the ratings, I admire him a bit. And I'm, I'm a big Miami Dolphins football fan. I probably have coach Mike McDaniel on. I think he's a really interesting guy and I would, uh, chat with him.
David: He is definitely a cool guy. All right, this is the last one. If you had a time machine, you can go to the future, you can go to the past. Which way are you going and what year are you going to go to?
Shawn Seipler: I'm probably going to the past. very hard one. Thank you. Future to see my one of my five children would be phenomenal when they are our, youngest or seven year old past Sort of two moments. I'd love to more modern history. I love to go back to 1963 and dr. Martin Luther King Moment I think being there witnessing that and then farther back I would probably go back to To when Jesus, uh, brought Lazarus out of the grave.
That was the moment that he, that he wept. There's a lot of, uh, meaning around that, that, that moment. And so that would be the, the real historical time that I would go back to and love to witness.
Steve Carran: Very cool. Well, that was great. Now we're going to learn a little bit more about you. Kind of what makes you tick. So you grew, when you were growing up, you traveled kind of all over. You were in Florida. You were in my beloved state of Wisconsin for a while. You're in Illinois. How did that shape you into who you are today?
Just kind of moving around so much.
Shawn Seipler: Well, you know, the, the, the, um, having to assimilate, having to make new friends. you know, those moments of coming to a new place and, and sort of getting used to coming to a new place or going to a new place and quickly having to, you know, sort of assess, become friends with folks. I, I, I've always had a, a personality that wants to be friendly and that wants to, engage with others.
Also, when I was young, I was really, really good, at sports. I was very athletic. I was very good at baseball, basketball, football. So there was this. The thing that I had that helped a bit, whenever I went to the new place, I was also the new athlete that came in, the youngster that could, you know, help us win more games, and, and so, you tend to have folks then, you know, will become more friendly with you.
There's a lot of obstacles that you do not deal with when you can come and bring that sort of a, you know, that sort of a, um, a friend. The flip side is, lost a lot of relationships. you know, just made friends and then I was gone. Uh, sometimes that wasn't as easy as it sounds. There became a time when I got into middle school and high school where I wasn't such the standout athlete.
I was, but it wasn't as monumental as it seemed like it was in third and fourth grade. and so that probably has also, uh, just. Ensuring the, uh, uh, even professionally, you know, staying the course, uh, ensuring that we we're gonna continue to put our time into things. Things don't have to come and, and resolve and end in a and quicker, and I think that kind of goes back to my patience.
I wish I had some more patience and that maybe has led to some impatience. But, um, looking back, the overall benefit was, I believe tremendous. I, I have a, a. Ability to articulate, communicate with others. I have used that in promoting our mission, our organization, especially to the global hospitality industry.
The industry has been very receptive to what we do, and I think those skills that I learned, when I was young in moving around and coming into new environments have translated to my adult and professional life.
David: I can appreciate this next question because I went to several colleges also, but you went to six colleges, were on the Dean's List at most of them, and then you graduated from Houston with a finance degree. with all the moving around, how did you end up in Houston and how did you end up with a finance degree?
Shawn Seipler: Yeah, and so, to be clear, I never graduated. got to about my senior year, started with a technology company where I was selling the first Windows based, trucking software system. So, full truckload, LTL, intermodal. Started doing remarkably well, had kind of my first six figure year when I was 21, and I made the decision at that point that going to school versus getting into tech sales, I decided to get into tech sales.
finance, just always have had sort of that, that, that math, excelled at math. By the way, though I have not graduated from college. I have lectured at Harvard. I have lectured at, uh, about 50 universities, including universities in China, in Europe, and across the United States, so I, I caveat that piece of it, but, um, you know, I was in, uh, my, my last two years of high school and, uh, first couple years of college, I was in, North Chicago, South Wisconsin, and, uh, the one school that I had some problems at, I was not on the dean's list, and I was, in fact, asked to, to please exit.
At that point, my parents, uh, had relocated to Houston and, uh, uh, being a thin blooded South Floridian, having served already my five years in Chicago, Wisconsin, I felt that going to Houston was an appropriate move for my, um, my mental and physical health as well. so then went down to, to Houston and, uh, a couple of community colleges in, in 
David: you were on the Kelly Clarkson show. What was that experience like?
Shawn Seipler: It was incredible. Kelly is amazing. The, infectious approach that she takes and what you see with her on the show. tell you a really cool story. It was on twice and it was a segment, a good neighbor segment. And so our local, NBC affiliate and anchor who does more of the community engagement sort of, Um, stories in Central Florida, Nancy Alvarez went with me, and kind of took me to Kelly Clarkson and we did this segment together.
We were also there, by the way, with Derek Hough, Dancing with the Stars, and Jay Hernandez who is Magnum PI. They were also kind of on the set, on the scene with us when I had my, my segment. Now, backstage in the green room, I tell Nancy, I tell her about Clean the World and I tell her about When we travel to Latin countries, we have a song that we sing to teach children and mothers how and when to wash their hands, and it's done in Spanish, and it's done to La Bamba.
Now, though I am half Puerto Rican and half German, I do not know Spanish quite well. It's, it's, it's, I'm not fluent. And so, but I can sing this song, and I do it in my, you know, best, Spanish, uh, um, tones, I guess. So I tell her about this moment and, uh, okay, that's backstage. So now we're, we're on stage where we've got 12 cameras, we've got the audience with Kelly, and though it is non scripted, it really is scripted.
Here are the questions we're going to ask, here are kind of the answers we want, here's the timing. So about a question or two in, Nancy says, Hey Kelly, I'm going to go off script. Sean told me about this song that he sings to teach children across Latin America how to wash their hands. Would you like him to sing it for you? And in my head, I'm going, Oh, Nancy, Nancy. And Kelly goes, of course. And so now to Kelly's band audience cameras, uh, my wife's sitting back there. I now have to sing. Para lavar los manos, para lavar los manos, se necesita un poco de agua. So I lay it out. By the way, I'm good doing it now because I did it on the Kelly Clarkson show.
I lay that line out, Kelly says, wow, you have incredible tone. And I'm like, okay, I've got incredible tone. And this came from our American Idol, you know, best all time singer. So. So fast forward, we have the, the day it's debuting, we have a live showing, uh, a viewing party at our office. Actually, the NBC affiliate is at Clean the World all day.
They're doing segments all day leading up to the Kelly Clarkson Show, Nancy Alvarez in the studios, Stuart Moore's in our facilities. We've got all the folks that are on, and I've now been building up to everyone. You're going to hear me sing. And this, this could be the moment that, uh, that things change.
I don't know if I'm going to get the call at some point. And, uh, of course they, uh, the moment comes, they cut it out of the show. And, uh, and then I'm left having to explain to everybody, no, it really happened. My wife's having to validate, not really, but, uh, but that was one of the things that never made it on the, uh, the final cutting reel, but Kelly did say I had great tone and I take that to heart.
And that's why I feel much better about. performing that, that song now in front of others.
Steve Carran: That is awesome. That is awesome. I was a huge Kelly Clarkson fan and that was like high school for me, high school, college. So big fan there. So that was great. So now we're going to learn a little bit more about, you know, how you got to where you are. So you mentioned, you know, you dropped out of Houston, started software sales.
I guess, You know, for people who are kind of in maybe a similar situation, they're in college, they're not sure if this is the right path for them, what advice would you give to kind of those people who are deciding if college is the right fit, or should I just jump into a job right away?
Shawn Seipler: was told, around that time from the, the gentleman that owned the software company that I was starting to be very successful for and selling his software quite a bit. So maybe there was a bias sort of idea that he gave me, but he said, you go to college to figure out how to earn more money. So if you, if you need college in your career, in your field, or at your time of life in order to earn more money, then you do it.
When you get to a spot where you're starting to earn that money and think that you may not necessarily, in that case for me, it was in sales and marketing and, really business development. then perhaps you do not need college. Now that said, as I have lectured at colleges, across the globe and, uh, and have been in high schools and, and, and did career day last year for my, uh, my daughter's first grade class, my strong encouragement is to take that extended education to complete college.
There are so many, not just, curriculum focused, things that we learn there, but there's just disciplines and. Relationships and the social side critical thinking in a safe environment, those are all things that I think are really key. So I would, uh, my advice would be to try to do college and, complete it.
But if you get into a situation where you just can't stop the momentum of something powerful and special happening, and you have to choose between the two. Hey, I'm an example that it can happen and you can be successful.
 
David: So from 2003 to 2009, you were vice president at Channel Intelligence. How did that role help you and being a CEO today?
Shawn Seipler: Immensely, our CEO there, Rob White. Managing director of Windows NT 2. 0, networking software. He grew up in central Florida and he was here because his son had a particular allergy that he needed to be in this environment. He came and started this awesome Silicon Valley high tech company that was modeled after Microsoft, the culture, way that we invested in the employees and their ability to innovate and create and grow.
Awesome. And we did. I started as employee number 25. about three years after I left, we were doing about three or four million dollars of revenue when I started. By the time I left, we were doing about 25 million dollars of revenue. I was operating about 20 million of it. And a few years after I started Clean the World, Google purchased Channel Intelligence, 175 million, and that is the basis of Google Shopping.
So the technology that you see today in Google Shopping, that was the technology that we created. It was data, channel, product unification, optimization. It was getting consumers on comparison shopping engines. On Amazon, we were one of the first to do integrations with storefronts in Amazon. So it was all, and it was all based around sort of data unification and, um, and optimization.
I learned not just within the tech world, data driven, which is a big key to clean the world. You think about our social impact, environmental impact. Well, one of the keys is how we're able to show that in, articulate that from a data perspective, to our clients. So they have that raw data and that clear data on how many lives they've impacted, how much carbon offset, how much energy they've saved, water they've saved, how much landfill diversion.
That's what's necessary in this world of. So we're not talking anecdotally, we're talking about specifics that we have done in order to make a difference socially and environmentally. So that data side has come, the way we track things at Clean the World. more importantly, the relationship with our team members, fostering innovation and creativity, having an environment and a culture that specifically leans into Diversity of employee, and that really for us, uh, is about, background and education and, nationality certainly is part of that and gender is part of that, but it's very much so about diversity of, of how you feel about things, how you think about things, what you want to do in this world, what you want to solve, and then we're going to empower you to be able to, to come to the table with those ideas and those innovations.
And so, whereas we started and still do a, I think a very, you know, great job taking used soap and plastic from hotels and recycling it to, to protect our, our planet and to save lives, we have also become a impact product. Innovative organization. We've created additional impact products. We are in completely different segments right now doing additional things.
And I think that is because of the culture and the way that we have leaned into the empowerment of the, of the team members, which I gleaned from channel intelligence and I felt like I excelled because of that environment. And so that, uh, that has absolutely guided me today in, in, um, you know, our 15 year now.
 
David: so you've given us some insight into the company, Clean the World. what inspired you to, to start it? What was the moment where you were like, Hey, this, I gotta tackle this. I gotta go after 
Shawn Seipler: I managed, uh, in addition to the global sales team, I managed a couple of accounts myself, specifically Best Buy and Target. And so I was in Minneapolis 30 to 40 nights a year. Again, thin blooded Floridian. I have now relocated down to Houston and Florida for 20 years, and now I'm finding myself in Minneapolis, which is an amazing city.
Love it. so I'm in a hotel that I stay at quite frequently by the Mall of America. And about that time I was the entrepreneur in me, which was prevalent all the way back to, to, to my childhood, wanted to do something on my own. Just felt that it was, that the itch inside of me to, to start my own business, to do my own thing was really a fire, was, you know, inside.
And, so I thought as an entrepreneur that I would look at green energy sustainability. Um. Granted, just to be very fair too, as an entrepreneur, you know, it wasn't this desire inside that I had to save our planet or that I was impacted by climate change and things, which by the way, I have certainly progressed and evolved in those areas and have very strong opinions today.
Back then, it was entrepreneurial. It was like, hey, what's the next 15, 20 years going to be? Solar, wind panels, uh, you know, I was just on all of that, wind turbines, solar panels. And I was just looking for items of waste, and in the hotel that I stayed 40 nights a year with the staff and the people that I had a great relationship with, I was having a couple cocktails one night, which was, you know, indicative of a night in Minneapolis for me to stay warm and survive the night, of course.
Uh, I thought about the little bar of soap, and as I traveled from one city to the next, I never took it with me. I thought, what happened to that soap, when I was done with it. So I called the front desk and I asked. They chuckled. They said, can we send you another cocktail? I said, great idea, but answer the, but what happens with the soap?
They said, we throw it away. And I said, interesting. And I went right to my laptop and I started Googling. Uh, at that time, we had 4.6 million hotel rooms in the U.S We had an average stay of like 1.5 or, you know, 1.75 nights. Uh, we had a 60 occupancy, and I just sort of did back of envelope math and said, if all hotels in the US were throwing their soap away, we're throwing away a million bars of soap every day across the US and several million more across the globe, if that's the case That was the spark. Over the next sort of days and weeks, I researched how to recycle soap. I found some very simple ways to melt it down and reform it into a new bar, which is called rebatching.
And then it became, okay, what am I going to do with recycled soap? Again, entrepreneurially speaking, can we sell it? Would Whole Foods carry it? Would my family members buy it? Could we go to international markets with it? You know, we're going through all this. And I've started to socialize this amongst some, some friends and, and, uh, um, uh, individuals, family members and individuals who became part of the early days of the company.
And that is when, we found what became the aha moment for Clean the World. And it was a number of studies that we found that showed that back then in 2009, there were 9, 000 children under the age of five dying every day to pneumonia and diarrheal disease. Number one and number two leading cause of death amongst children worldwide, five and a half million children a year.
And all these studies show that if we just gave them soap and taught them how and when to wash their hands, we could cut those deaths in half. And I can still remember being on my bed in my, one of my two homes I had in Central Florida. I've got the nicest car on the block. I've got tens of thousands of stock options to a company that's already talking to Google.
But I've got a wife and four young children and I'm looking at all these studies and I'm There's millions of bars of soap being thrown away every day. There's 9, 000 children dying every day. And I just got to figure out how to get the million bars recycled in the hands of those who need it. Like it was just a simple answer to what I felt was an injustice.
Just wasn't fair. And that was really the moment of obligation. The moment that I said, I've got to, you know, And that sparked then a, you know, a series of events that within a few months had me in a single car garage, uh, cooking soap and grinding soap and scraping soap and, and making the whole thing happen.
And, and that was really the, the moment, but it started in that hotel room and that environment, curiosity, research, and then kind of continuing down the road in the track to figure out what an answer was. And the answer just hit me upside the head. I said, I got to do something.
 
Steve Carran: That's awesome. So I was doing some research on your website and, you know, you have a ton of great stats about your global impact. 9. 1 million pounds of plastic collected, 18. 3 million pounds of soap collected, but the one that really stuck out to me was 27. 4 million pounds of waste diverted from landfills.
Why is diverting waste from landfills so important?
Shawn Seipler: Well, it's, you know, unfortunately, go to a lot of beaches and waterways and see the trash. I mean, we're just, we're not doing a good job right now of keeping plastic and waste and things that are harmful to water systems and, to land and to, to soil. We're not doing a good job keeping that out of, landfills.
and we are over, using our landfills and we're not, you know, we're just, we're not doing a good job. And that's, that's if you walk across the United States. We'll walk across other countries that do not have the same type of collection, recycling, and, um, education, uh, that we do here in the U. S. some of the most beautiful beaches that you would, would love to, to, to, to play at, in some countries in the Caribbean, or in, you know, Central America, South America, in Southeast Asia, are just littered with, uh, trash. with trash and plastic and things that are harmful to habitats and In water and then again as I mentioned in the past I mean, it's it's all contributing to this this this carbon is just contributing to some historic Uh, results, uh, bad results with respect to, to climate change.
prior to us getting on, the Washington Post put an article out today that, uh, July 22nd, this past Sunday, was the hottest day in the history of the world. Okay? So that's a, it's the hottest day. 62 degrees Fahrenheit across the globe. Now, in modern days, there's a date in August of 2016.
They track as the hottest day on earth, right? So kind of the first time in our modern days that they track, this is the hottest day ever in the history of the world, okay? The last 13 months, we've had 58 days of the hottest days in the history of the earth. So sit that in. I mean, you know, whether you think we're a 6,000 year old Earth or a hundred thousand year old earth or whatever.
Certainly from the time we track and scientists believe, and these are the same scientists by the way, that put men on the moon. So not sort of out there. I mean, this is nasa, this is our climate folks. We're, we're, we're in a, uh, in a spot where scientists that thought maybe five years ago, we still had 10 or 15 years to try to correct things.
Um, we're not, we're, we're, we're there now. So it's an all in approach. It's landfill diversion, it's carbon, it's protecting water systems, protecting the, the, the ice caps. I mean, it's, just a lot that we need to do and we, we, we've got to get real smart and get, get real passionate about doing it right now because again, I have a seven year old.
And, um, you know, a fear of going into the future to maybe see what it's like when you ask that question about past and future. And that's sad. You know, that's sad.
Steve Carran: totally. And your company is so interesting, we've never had anybody on like this. Can you give, just for those that might not be familiar, just a quick 30 second elevator pitch of really what clean the world is and what y'all do?
Shawn Seipler: Yeah, we're a global social enterprise. We're an impact product company. We make impact products. Our mission is to make the world a better place. We make these impact products for the global hospitality industry and for the global community. You know, private sector, corporate industry, uh, corporate, uh, to purchase, to help other people, to help the environment, and again, to make the world a better place.
We provide those products. With clear data and measurements around their success socially, environmentally, we offer the marketing and the PR, and the social support to make sure that companies can share that and talk about that. You know, it's within that realm of ESG, as challenging as that word and phrase may be in our current political environment.
not only is it still important, but our largest consumers base, you talk about Gen, uh, Millennials and Gen Z and, and, and continuing on, they are so socially conscious, they're so environmentally conscious that, uh, that while we can, you know, debate terms and regulations and things that folks get into, there is a clear cut understanding that we have to be conscious of environmental, social, uh, uh, you know, within our world today.
And so we help companies. We help them enact those, goals that they have set, those pillars that they have set, those are important for their, consumers, for their shareholders, for their, stakeholders, for their employees. We help them achieve those goals, we give them the data and all the reporting so that they, they can see.
and understand the exact, results that they've had and we help them share that, you know, on, uh, marketing and PR and within global citizenship reports so that, uh, they can let folks know the great thing that they're doing. And we're very proud of our partners. We're, we're blessed. Our partners are amazing.
Our global hospitality industry partners are amazing. They're trying to do the right thing and, uh, and so we're there to help support that and create products that, that, that help them do the right thing.

Steve Carran: That's absolutely great. So now we're going to get more into the industry thoughts a little bit. one thing that I'm really excited to get your opinion on, we talk about sustainability quite a bit on the show. and one of the, I guess, first things that, you know, how can hotels implement something easily to help be more sustainable.
And one of the first things we usually hear is get rid of the little plastic bottles of soap and implement a big dispenser. What are some of, I guess, you know, we know that's a better than the little bottles, but, you know, are there any negatives to that, to that big dispenser that maybe you guys can help solve?
Shawn Seipler: Yes, and uh, I'll touch on that in just one moment, so, so, to be clear, plastics coming out of hotels are the most challenging plastics to recycle and to, to get into the circular plastic economy, because they are mixed plastics, they are dirty plastics, they have so much residual, and when you talk about those small single use, very, very challenging to recycle, so when you have a limited bandwidth of the recycling global industry, global, global Uh, a recycling community who just wants clean plastic and they want easy plastic to deal with.
They do not like to deal with those small single use plastics that are colored, that are dirty, that are residual conditioner, body wash, and all that. So we are strong advocates of, of, of being out of the single use plastic and getting into the large, format, dispenser system. Okay. Now there are two types of dispenser systems.
There are what we call closed looped or tamper proof systems, ones that are large, we use 16 ounces, 18 ounces, 14 ounces of it, but we can't get into it, someone can't come in and tamper with it, and we do not have a scenario where a room attendant is refilling it or basically topping it off. By the way, doing something that a manufacturer that has OSHA guidelines and, uh, FDA guidelines and all other types of guidelines to top off at a manufacturing line, we don't want that, which is what happens in a refillable dispenser situation.
Uh, we don't want that, and so those large, closed systems, tamper proof systems, those are the right type of systems. Less plastic, uh, we're able to use more product. Uh, we're seeing that from some of our partners in a, in a huge way. We're getting more plastic through. We're able to recycle more plastic.
That's, that's excellent. Let me just speak on, on the refillable dispensers. And I want to start by saying that all of our hotel partners Uh, those that have even gone in refillable dispensers, they are, and the the ownerships, teams, and developers, and all those that, that are, that are probably listening to this.
This is all being driven by them trying to do the right thing. They're trying to figure out what is the right thing to do for the environment. They're trying to figure out what's the right thing to do for the environment. And, and so I offer an opinion, and I offer a thought on this that, um, that, that, that please understand that I understand where the intent is, okay?
That said, we've studied the refillable dispensers. Uh, we studied it with Dr. Gerber out of the University of Arizona. We put a study out. The study was actually released just prior to COVID. And then when COVID hit, we just felt it wasn't the right time to really go heavy with the study. We will, we will, we are, the study's found on our website, can send you guys a copy.
Anybody wants to contact us at Clean the World, we can get it to you. It studied the refillable dispenser process and how much bacteria and pathogen and disease was spread. When we are going through the refilling process, when we're taking, you know, big old jugs and we're putting them in sort of ketchup bottles and we're coming into the room and we are refilling the shampoo and the body wash and then we're taking the rag and we're cleaning it and perhaps we're cleaning the toilet and perhaps we're cleaning the shower as well and there's so much cross contamination and so much cross pollution that occurs.
And when you think about a global pandemic, when you think about the health concerns and how things spread. When you think about, and I just throw this out as a critical sort of thinking, when one travels and gets sick on the road and they come home, they typically blame the airport, the airplane, the times that I was with other people.
They're not thinking about what happened in the hotel room. Was that a refillable dispenser? Did that, did that rag that was used to clean and open, did somebody tamper with it? Was there, so I, I, I throw this out for folks to think about. you know, we are strong advocates for those closed loop systems, tamper proof systems, systems that cannot, and do not need the rag and the cleaning and will not get inside the product that will eventually be dispensed onto the human and into, you know, their, their cleaning process versus those that are refillable, which we know have studied and can, can validate with the doctor that we did this with, Dr.
Gerber, he did the largest, uh, public Dr. Gervois was a professor of public bathroom studies in the United States and was a major advocate, which is why public bathrooms do not use refillable dispensers anymore. They use those plastic cartridges inside that once empty, they take the plastic cartridge out, they put another one in.
That was all of his work, and you know, he was on Good Morning America, just a ton of media, so you can look him up. He's called Dr. Germ. And so again, we commissioned him to do the study in the bathrooms, and I just think the timing of it was interesting when COVID came out. We do see that move. We want to be very conscious and, you know, to protect our clients.
We appreciate, love our clients, but we also need them to know that, uh, that it's very important that we use tamper proof systems, non, uh, systems we can get into versus those that are open dispenser. 
David: great.
And so Clean the World's Hospitality Recycling Program reports on the hotel's impact with the UN Sustainability Goals. How important is that and what does that really mean for hotels?
Shawn Seipler: Well, the majority, I would say all global hospitality firms have stated. 2030 goals have stated, their environmental social governance goals and have all done that in alignment with the sustainable development goals with SDG. So, I can't think of a brand that I cannot go onto their site and see within their, um, uh, you know, environmental sustainability, um, pillars and statements. Where and how they are aligning around, the UN SDGs. UN SDGs are a great standard of things that we can work on in all areas that help those, help the environment. So, if we have a bunch of partners that are stating those goals, that need to achieve those goals, and we have products and services and programs that can help them achieve those goals, then it makes a ton of sense for us to be able to track it, to have third party auditability on that.
and then to put it in terms that they need to report on and talk about to their consumers, to their employees, to their stakeholders, which are within the realm of the UNSDG. So our, our portal, we have over 8, 000 hotel clients that operate across the globe. We have, uh, recycling centers in Orlando, Vegas, Montreal, Punta Cana, Amsterdam, Hong Kong.
We have offices in London and Singapore. So we are on, uh, most continents. Uh, and uh, and Operating Hotels, and we are giving each one of them individually a, a very detailed reporting portal where they can see landfill diversion, waste diverted, uh, you know, plastic diverted, soap diverted, uh, carbon offset, uh, water saved, energy saved, uh, refugee served, number of soap bars handed out, number of hand washes handed out.
Our partners over 15 years have distributed. Over 85 million free bars of soap to children, families, and mothers in 127 countries across the globe. We've delivered 2 billion hand washes. And in that 15 years, the United Nations has reported that the death rate to children under the age of 5 dying to hygiene related illnesses has decreased by more than 60%.
In fact, the United Nations added our 501c3, our global health non profit, The Wash Foundation, is a part of the United Nations Global Wash Cluster. Driving, uh, global strategies on water, sanitation, hygiene. That's occurred because of our hotel partners. That's because of, uh, of every Hilton, and Marriott, and Wyndham, and Sands, and Caesars, and MGM, and all those incredible partners.
And I didn't name them all, we have just every one of them. It's every day, those room attendants are collecting that soap, collecting that plastic. Keeping out of landfill, from the SOPs perspective, that recycling and distribution, and we're tracking all that, we're presenting all that to our clients, and we're letting them tell that story, because that's them.
We're just sort of the, we're the platform in the middle, but it's their work, it's their effort, it's their resources, it's their financial, um, uh, investment that has to occur for this to happen, and so it's quite important. And it's been an awesome story over the last 15 years in the global hospitality industry.
Steve Carran: That's great. You know, you're obviously an expert in the sanitation, sanitation, sustainability area. Are there any trends, whether it's, you know, in those two areas or in hotels that you're really excited about?
Shawn Seipler: the reduction of plastic. I mean, we're, we're, we're continuing to see the reduction of whether that is straws, whether that is, uh, just more sustainable, uh, cups. And, um, you know, there are, the hospitality industry, global hospitality industry has a wonderful opportunity because they do produce a lot of waste.
I mean, it's the home away from home, right? It's, it's, it's that moment where we're, um, and so the innovations that are occurring Bye. Uh, the, um, uh, you know, the opportunities for guests to not have their linens cleaned and to save water and to save energy. There's some great organizations out there that are also tying that to planting trees and getting, uh, you know, having more, more carbon offset programs, uh, that are, uh, you know, that are, that are initiated.
So, if I go back seven years or so, the VP of Sustainability, the head of Corporate Social Responsibility, was a, uh, a relatively new, executive within the hospitality industry. So, so now we're investing at the, at the C level and in the C suite to have somebody that's focused on social responsibility, ESG, and sustainability.
that's a major investment, and those individuals are being armed, and some of the relationships that I have with those heads of sustainability at these corporate flags, they are amazingly brilliant people. They are at the cutting edge, and they are, you know, investigating, and trialing, and, and, and, and implementing, these programs and these initiatives, so those are all great trends.
I hope and pray that continues. We've got to continue to lean into that. There were some tough times during those COVID years. It was good to see that we came out of it with a continued emphasis on sustainability and social impact. And, and, and those were not sort of cut out, because there were some financial hardships that occurred.
during that time. So those are all positive trends and, uh, we support them and we're looking for the next innovations and, uh, in ways that we can also play a role as we look at, you know, what we will be in the next 15 years,
David: so you've given some, great advice around plastic, landfill diversion. We've missed that you'd like to share with hotels that are looking to be more sustainable that we haven't covered
Shawn Seipler: just keep, keep fighting the really good fight. Right. And, and, and, and look, sustainability, is absolutely within the realm Environmental Protection, Waste Diversion, Energy, you know, Reduction of Energy, Reduction of Water. Sustainability is also people. It is also the empowerment of at risk communities.
it is the hiring of people, that are at risk, that, that, that, that need to start their career path and, and, and, and how much within the service industry, the hospitality industry does, does that occur? And so, we, we gotta continue that. It's that ongoing education. It's investing and leaning into people so that they can continue their track.
I mean, I, I, I am, one of the beautiful things that we get to do and that, um, I've done less of over the last But, but I've nonetheless have been able to do some of it. We have a brand ambassador who is my uncle, who is actually one of the, if you know the story of Clean Road, one of the Puerto Ricans in the garage when we started 15 years ago scraping and grinding and cooking.
He's our brand ambassador and he travels regularly to hotels. He meets in the morning with the back of house staff and he expresses to them the importance of this mission and who they're serving and who they're helping. And it's just fascinating the diversity there, just fascinating the people that are getting their opportunities and that are helping their families back in their countries that they come from.
And, you know, they are such a key, individual in their entire. And, uh, and that's the hospitality industry that makes that happen, globally. So, I continue to encourage not just the sustainability aspect, so important, but the people aspect. Uh, and, uh, and what we're doing, and we see this every day, not just front of house, which we do an amazing job of, but what we're doing back of house and inside the house with our staff and with our growth and, and training and education. And, um, uh, I'm a firm believer, And I see this with our, with our partners and clients, especially those that really lean in and try and do as much as they can with us. When you're out there trying to do the right thing, okay, good things happen to you. And I, you know, and I'm not going to get into just stars align and good things happen.
Keep trying to do the right thing because good things will continue to happen.
Steve Carran: I love that. I love that. the early days of Clean the World, kind of, what's coming to mind is almost the Fight Club scene where they're like cooking soap and kind of putting things together, except a smaller version of that and with better intentions. But that's one thing that came to mind and just kind of cracked me up a little bit.
Shawn Seipler: I've had with, with, uh, I, I can't tell you how many people have referenced that as I've given keynotes around the world. You know, you're Fight Club, but, uh, 
but that's how we started. I mean, uh, we, we started collecting soap around Orlando. We were all in a single car garage in downtown Orlando. We're sitting on upside down pickle buckets.
We have potato peelers in our hands. We've got a big trash can in the middle. We're getting soap. We're scraping the outside of the bars of soap to surface clean it. We have a meat grinder where we grind it into a noodle. We have Kenmore cookers where we are cooking the soap into a paste. We have these big wood soap molds.
When the cook, when the, when the soap is cooked and impurities are cooked out, we put a layer of wax paper, we put the paste on, we put some more wax paper. We top it, we clamp it overnight, it dries. The next day. We have wire cutters, we cut the soap. Out of the wood soap mold, we put it on some racks, it blows dry, the power cuts in the house every 30 minutes, which not only stops the machines, but it also stops the music, and since it was my Puerto Rican family, we have to have the salsa and the merengue going in order for us to keep working, and uh, in true story, the first time the police came by the garage, they wanted to see what all of us Puerto Ricans were cooking.
this was at the height of Breaking Bad, by the way, when it was chopping, top, topping the charts, and I, you know, my Uncle Oscar kind of nudged and said, Sean, I think you're the most articulate. Why don't you talk to him? And I said, Officer, come look at what we're doing. And to his, uh, bewilderment, you know, he said, you guys are cooking soap.
I said, yeah. So that's how we started. Those were our, that was our, our roots. And, um, it's a, it's a true garage cooking, story that has led to, you know, this, uh, this incredible impact.
Steve Carran: That's awesome. So we've been asking you questions this whole time. We're gonna turn the tables a little bit and let you ask one question before we hand it over to Jon for our final question.
Shawn Seipler: What trends, uh, you know, what are you guys seeing as you talk to industry experts and, uh, and those that are leading the way, within the realm of sustainability and social impact? And I think the easy one is, right, dispensers, and we're going to larger, but what, beyond that, what are, what are you hearing?
What are you seeing? And, and what do you see? So, 10 years from now, what do you think a modern hotel room looks like, or a standard hotel room looks like, that has implemented what you think from a sustainability perspective is trending in the industry?
Steve Carran: there's one hotel that I'm just blown away by that's being built in Denver right now. It's carbon neutral. it has plants on the outside, like all about sustainability. I think, you know, there's always Preferred Hotels has a, has a green side as well. You know, I think we're going to see more and more of these carbon neutral and sustainability friendly hotels.
The upcoming generation is so passionate. The Modern Hotelier, David Millili, Steve Carran, Stayflexi, SOPs, Clingendael Institute, friend shoring, Revinate, Jon Bumhoffer, Revinate, CRM, CEO, LodgIQ, Dr. Elizabeth Haas, Pierre Gervois, AIG, Dr. Elizabeth Haas, CRM, CEO, LodgIQ, Dr. Elizabeth Haas, 
David: and 
I think you know for me personally listening to you is very um, it's inspirational because I have heard A lot, but I haven't seen. So I've heard a lot of panels at trade shows and talk and, you know, you see a press release, but then I travel a lot and I don't feel that it's necessarily always aligns because for me, it's like, how the hell could you still have these small bottles as we're approaching 2025?
So for me, it's very encouraging to listen to you because I, I, I, I've Got a better feeling coming out of this podcast than going in as to where the industry was heading. But again, I, I love the fact that people are actually doing something because, being the old guy, you know, you kind of get grumpy and you say, wow, like they've been talking about it for 15, 20 years, but where's the, where's the raw, where's the action?
Like what's really happening? So it was great hearing from you.
Steve Carran: David, I agree. When you, when you walk into a hotel room and it says, oh, we're a green hotel or a sustainable hotel. And then they have the small bottles in the bathroom. I'm just like, come on guys. But anyways, so now we are going to loop in our producer, Jon. He is going to hit you with the last question here, and then we're going to get you out of here.
Jon Bumhoffer: Alright, so Clean the World has a big environmental impact, but you also touched a little bit on the social impact as well, like getting soap to those who need it in developing countries and things like that. I'm curious if there's any moments or things that you could highlight to really be like, in your mind, you just had that thought of like, yes, this is why we're doing this.
Shawn Seipler: brilliant question, Jon. Thank you for that. July of 2009, we are still operating in a garage, we're scraping soap, we're grinding soap. there's a great Article that the Orlando Sentinel wrote called clean the world's rocky path to success out there. And it details the financial troubles that I went through, lost all of our money, lost a home, lost car, had my wife's car repoed at one point, uh, power cut in my house.
I'm borrowing money from my parents. So I went from being very well off to not as I dived in. And some of that was just probably not smart management at that time, not knowing what I was doing. that's the backdrop and we. at Clean the World, we're going to do our first international distribution trip.
We're going to go to Cape Haitian, Haiti, which is the northern part of Haiti. And we've got 2, 000 bars of soap that we've hooked in our garage. We end up loading up a DC 3, 1940s built airplane. And we fly this twin propeller, over the Bermuda Triangle. Uh, at one moment, the pilots mess around with me, and I'm like, this Not the time.
We had to circle the runway a couple times because there's a cow on the runway, they get the run, they get the cow off, we land in Capation, Haiti. Now, Haiti is a stone's throw away from Central Florida. Uh, it is, uh, uh, you know, it's a, it's a quicker flight in a DC 3 to get to Haiti than it is in a 737 to get to Washington, D.
C. So now we pop up in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, we load up a van, we drive to a church, this is a Wednesday afternoon, one o'clock, I come in the back of this massive building, I am unprepared for this scene, there are 10, 000 people in this church, it is July, it is hot, they are in their Sunday best, we have 2, 000 bars of soap, so I'm immediately, my finance degree is kicking in, I'm going, this isn't going to work.
And one by one, the pastor calls up mothers who come up and share stories of the one child that they had to bury. Two children that they buried. They all had to bury them after they started getting stomach pains. All the symptoms of diarrheal disease. And they don't have soap. They don't understand soap.
They don't understand the necessity of it. And they make 2 a day. They have a 70 percent unemployment rate. And soap costs the same 50 cents in Haiti as it does here at Barsoap. So it's just this moment of complete, just everything stirring around. I, I, I, you know, the only thing I could say is that we will bring more soap.
I promise we will bring more soap to you. We've probably have, I think we've taken 3 or 4 million bars of soap back to that area since then. But that was a moment when everything Went from here to here. It all sort of didn't matter anymore. The fact that my one house got taken and my car, you know, those things didn't matter when I'm seeing these children who have the same beautiful eyes and the same beautiful smile and the same beautiful faces as our children, but they're born in an area that again is just a stone's throw away.
So that was a moment of clear conviction, understanding. And, there was going to be a lot of trials and tribulations that we still were going to, to, to encounter, but nothing is like what I see my brothers and sisters in, in Haiti have to deal with. And, and that's very relevant today, by the way, thinking about just, just.
Thank you for that question, because that was the, one of the key moments for me to, that, that, that drove this 15 year, got us out of some trouble. 
David: Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. So, Sean, this is where you get to let people know how they can get in touch with Clean the World, how they can connect with you. So, plug away.
Shawn Seipler: Yeah, so, uh, you go to CleanTheWorld. org, you can go to CTWEvents. org, uh, you can connect with us on, uh, LinkedIn, Sean Cypler, um, Instagram, Facebook, we are on all the social handles. In addition to Recycling Soap to Save Lives, we have an incredible global, uh, Impact Event Company, where we are doing events all over the world to help people build hygiene kits and backpacks and food pantry items to feed the hungry and serve those after disasters who need hygiene items.
We give showers to the homeless across the U. S. and our mobile hygiene unit, so you can read about all that, see all that. And you can support our global non profit, our 501c3, The WASH Foundation, uh, it's a public charity. We've got some awesome board members that are out of this entire global hospitality industry.
And you can support our programming that we're doing around the world there as well. Thank you so much for having me. This has been an awesome, awesome, uh, time with you guys and, uh, really appreciate it.
David: So, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. So, whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you. Until next time, we thank you.