You may soon be seeing soap bubbles in downtown Orlando, Fla.

Clean the World, an Orlando-based social enterprise that collects, recycles and distributes hotel soaps and bottled amenities to stop the spread of preventable diseases, welcomed the delivery of its first soap press, which will automate the soap recycling process and produce substantially more soap for children and families in need.

With the soap press running at full capacity for an entire work day in the Orlando facility, Clean the World will be able to produce 80,000 soap bars per day for children and families all around the world. That equates to:

• 5,555 soap bars per hour

• 92 bars per minute

• 1.5 bars per second or 3 bars every 2 seconds

The soap press was acquired in early September and delivered Sept. 26, just in time for assembly and unveiling at an invitation-only event that included Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy, real estate developer Craig Ustler, and Thomas McClary, an Orlando resident and one of the co-founders of The Commodores. Clean the World Foundation board members, Dr. Paul Skomsky and Mark Rucker, were also in attendance, along with fellow board members and Clean the World co-founders, Shawn Seipler and Paul Till.

Seipler, CEO of Clean the World, anticipates using the soap press to dramatically increase the daily output of recycled soaps produced in the Orlando facility from the present 10,000 per day to 80,000 per day.

“Our goal is to put more soap in the hands of people who need it most,” Seipler says. “The soap press will serve as an engine for our soap production and could produce a weeks-worth of soaps for us every day. The more soap we produce, the more children we may save from preventable diseases, such as acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease. This is a very exciting time for us and a big moment in our global hygiene revolution.” A gallery of photos from the Sept. 30 event may be found here.

Thomas McClary, left, and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer

In just two years of operation Clean the World has partnered with 1,200 hotel partners in North America to collect and recycle soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels from more than 260,000 hotel rooms. The organization has partnered with NGOs such as WorldVision and Harvest Time International to distribute more than 9 million bars of soap to communities in the United States, Canada and more than 45 countries.

The Inaugural Clean the World Gala, a Nov. 5 event hosted by The Peabody Orlando (a Clean the World partner), is scheduled to attract nearly 800 hospitality industry executives, community and business leaders, vendors and supporters for a night of fun and fundraising. Corporate table sponsorships are still available at www.cleantheworld.org/gala.