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Old hotel soaps for the benefit of the poorest

2021-05-30T15:04:12.523Z


FIGARO DEMAIN - Unisoap collects used hygiene products to make new ones. Fifty-one million used soaps are thrown away each year by hotels in France and 3 million people cannot afford basic hygiene products. Faced with the observation of this "phenomenal waste" , Pauline Grumel, who, ten years after setting up a communication agency, felt the need to "give meaning to (her) work", founded an association, Unisoap. Its approach is threefold: recover waste from hotels, recy


Fifty-one million used soaps are thrown away each year by hotels in France and 3 million people cannot afford basic hygiene products. Faced with the observation of this

"phenomenal waste"

, Pauline Grumel, who, ten years after setting up a communication agency, felt the need to

"give meaning to (her) work",

founded an association, Unisoap. Its approach is threefold: recover waste from hotels, recycle it in an ESAT (establishment and service to help through work) located near Lyon by having new soaps manufactured by disabled people and distributing them to people in precarious situations. via associations.

Read also:

Towards a green revolution in your bathroom: yes to solid zero waste products!

Since the end of 1998, the young entrepreneur has already collected 6 million soaps from 150 hotel groups (such as the Barrière Group) or independent structures (in particular the Accor group) in some fifty cities in France.

"I received a very good reception, hotels are already used to recycling plastic

," she says.

They are even the ones who come to us, some of the chambermaids already having stocks. ”

Suffice to say that the closure and low occupancy rate of establishments during the health crisis were not a problem for Unisoap, which has a sufficient stock of raw material to produce until 2022. Concretely, a truck passes collect the boxes filled by hoteliers as soon as they have reached their storage capacity, which varies greatly from one establishment to another.

A Lyon hotel alone provides up to 400 kg per year!

Confidential process

But after prototyping, production did not start until the end of 2020. Because it took two years of research and development, with an engineer and a cosmetics expert, to develop a confidential process suitable for disabled workers. while meeting the regulations in force in cosmetics. The work is done in several stages: manual cleaning of the soaps which, after passing through a machine, come out in the form of bars of 100 grams. For the moment, these are delivered as is, without packaging, to partner associations. The first three were Les Restos du cœur, the Salvation Army and the Secours populaire, but

"we are in great demand and we sometimes do special operations, for example for students"

, testifies the founder of the Lyon association, totally overwhelmed by its success.

Funded initially by donations - free - from hotels, it is now supported by foundations.

But isn't the generalization of liquid soaps in the hotel industry undermining its development prospects?

"Quite the contrary,

assures Pauline Grumel:

we are witnessing the return of solid and more ecological ranges ..."

Le Figaro



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Source: lefigaro

All business articles on 2021-05-30

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