"Dirty Jobs" is a television series that highlights individuals who perform challenging, unusual, and often messy jobs. In one episode, the host, Mike Rowe, dives into the world of pool maintenance and hotel soap recycling. As a pool fixer, Mike assists with the cleaning and repair of swimming pools, dealing with grime, algae, and malfunctioning equipment. The job requires a strong stomach and a willingness to get dirty while ensuring pools remain safe and inviting.
In the same episode, Mike explores the innovative and eco-friendly practice of hotel soap recycling. He joins a team that collects used soap bars from hotels, cleans, and processes them into new bars. This job involves handling soiled and sometimes unpleasantly scented soap, but it's a crucial effort to reduce waste and provide hygiene products to those in need. Both roles showcase the importance and impact of often overlooked but essential dirty jobs.
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In the same episode, Mike explores the innovative and eco-friendly practice of hotel soap recycling. He joins a team that collects used soap bars from hotels, cleans, and processes them into new bars. This job involves handling soiled and sometimes unpleasantly scented soap, but it's a crucial effort to reduce waste and provide hygiene products to those in need. Both roles showcase the importance and impact of often overlooked but essential dirty jobs.
#mikerowe #dirtyjobs #discovery #dirtyjobsfullepisodes #discoveryplus #discoverychannel #jobs #mikerow #discoverychanneldocumentary #hardestjobs #factoryjobs #dirtiestjobs #dirtyjobsnewseason #dirtyjobsreturn #dangerousjobs #extremejobs
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mike rowe
dirty jobs
discovery
dirty jobs full episodes
discovery plus
discovery channel
jobs
mike row
discovery+
discovery channel documentary
hardest jobs
factory jobs
dirtiest jobs
dirty jobs new season
dirty jobs return
dangerous jobs
extreme jobs
discovery us
adventure
Category
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PeopleTranscript
00:00 I'm Mike Rowe, and this is my job.
00:04 (upbeat music)
00:07 On this episode of Dirty Jobs, I finally found it.
00:10 The filthiest swimming pool in South Florida.
00:13 A lot of nooks and crannies on this show.
00:15 Technically, it's more like a swamp,
00:17 but whatever you call it, it's gotta be clean.
00:20 Man down?
00:21 Man down.
00:22 Yeah, but he's back up.
00:23 And today, we're gonna jump right in and hope for the best.
00:26 Try not to step in the cement.
00:28 But there's cements everywhere.
00:30 I know it is.
00:31 How do you not step in the cement?
00:32 You have to remember where it's at.
00:34 And later, maybe some goggles wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
00:37 Just trying to keep some of this anonymous sperm out of my eyes.
00:40 We get lathered up in a big way.
00:42 I've never felt so clean and so filthy at the same time.
00:45 To prove once again that the business of getting clean
00:48 Why is it brown?
00:50 Is a very dirty job.
00:52 Jealous.
00:54 (laughing)
00:56 (rock music)
01:21 So I'm in West Palm Beach, Florida,
01:23 looking for a guy named Dan Duker,
01:25 who owns a company called Vinyl Pools, LLC,
01:28 a family-owned business that specializes in giving old pools
01:32 a new lease on life.
01:34 I think I found it.
01:35 Welcome to my dirty job.
01:37 Pleasure to meet you, Mike.
01:39 Dan?
01:40 This is a bad pool.
01:41 It is.
01:42 Been sitting a while.
01:44 What's a while?
01:45 From what I hear, it's about 17 years.
01:48 Is somebody living here?
01:50 Not right now.
01:51 It's being rehabilitated.
01:53 We are going to make this thing look new again.
01:55 Drain it, clean it, install a new vinyl liner.
01:59 (laughing)
02:01 How much time is this going to take?
02:04 About four hours.
02:06 Oh, man.
02:08 Before we get started,
02:09 I just want to grab a few quick shots for the network.
02:12 I mean, what's the point of working on a TV show
02:14 if you don't promote it?
02:15 And there is simply no way I can ignore
02:17 the obvious visual appeal of a rancid pool
02:20 covered with snot-green algae
02:23 and filled with God knows what.
02:25 I saw motion, that's all I can say.
02:27 Probably not an alligator.
02:29 'Cause I'm looking at this opening here,
02:31 which is plenty large for anything to crawl through.
02:35 You got a bathing suit?
02:37 Yeah.
02:39 Back in a flash.
02:42 Oh, God.
02:44 (laughing)
02:45 Let's do this.
02:46 Honestly, the things I do for this network...
02:49 (splashing)
02:52 Jeez, that's awful.
02:55 Awful, awful.
02:57 Awful.
02:58 If you're wondering, the water is cool,
03:00 but not exactly refreshing.
03:03 Chunky might be a better word.
03:05 Chunky and viscous.
03:06 It's enough to make a fellow thirsty.
03:08 People say to me, "Mike Rowe,
03:09 "when you're out there in the world
03:10 "filming dirty jobs,
03:11 "do you ever have any time just to kick back and relax?"
03:15 And I tell 'em...
03:17 Yeah, I do.
03:19 And just like that, another network promo is in the can,
03:23 along with some obligatory eye candy
03:26 for your favorite social media platform.
03:29 Having done all that, let's get to work.
03:33 Okay.
03:34 As pools go, you've seen many.
03:37 Scale of 1 to 10, how bad is this?
03:40 10's the worst, right?
03:41 Yeah.
03:42 Yep.
03:43 11.
03:44 (laughing)
03:45 No doubt.
03:46 This is called Vinyl Pools.
03:47 Is this a vinyl pool?
03:48 Yeah, I didn't want to be ambiguous with the name.
03:50 I went straight forward, Vinyl Pools, that's what I do.
03:52 That's what I do every single day.
03:53 I appreciate it.
03:54 Believe it or not, my father built this pool.
03:55 You're kidding.
03:56 No.
03:57 So you come from a long line of pool people.
03:59 I'm a second-generation pool man.
04:01 Started working summers with him in 1996,
04:05 so I was 12 years old.
04:06 So I was the guy that got the tools,
04:08 brought everything back and forth from the truck.
04:10 Just do what you were told.
04:11 Digging trenches, doing, you know,
04:12 what I thought was everyday normal work.
04:14 This has got-- I mean, this is a character-building
04:17 summer job for a kid.
04:19 You're in South Florida.
04:21 I'm assuming there's going to be a fair amount
04:23 of back-breaking manual labor.
04:25 And, you know, just the constant excitement
04:27 of never knowing what lurks beneath the surface.
04:29 We got to get this water out of here.
04:31 That's number one.
04:32 So this is our workhorse on the operation today.
04:35 Just trying to get a nice snug fit
04:36 so we don't have any air leaks.
04:38 (engine starting)
04:41 So where's the water going to go that gets sucked out?
04:44 That way.
04:45 We just try to get as far away from the pool as possible.
04:48 If you're just joining us,
04:49 we're waiting for these pumps to do the job
04:52 of sucking out the 8,000 or 9,000 gallons
04:55 that were in here.
04:57 Shouldn't take too much longer.
05:00 I guess.
05:02 It's moving water.
05:03 We just got to clear a little pocket for it
05:05 so that it's not sucking up all that debris.
05:07 They just had the roof done,
05:09 and roofers don't care where their trash goes.
05:12 The roofers literally threw the crap straight in the pool.
05:15 Have you ever heard the old saying,
05:16 "Everything rolls downhill"?
05:18 Yeah, I've heard a version of it.
05:20 Yeah, guess where downhill is in Florida?
05:22 The bottom of a swimming pool.
05:25 What's this?
05:27 It was an old pool-cleaning hose.
05:29 Look.
05:30 Or you could reach over and grab it
05:32 instead of unraveling the whole thing, Mike.
05:34 This is better TV, Dad, trust me.
05:37 We can make a meal out of this.
05:39 All right, let's clear out a space
05:41 for this pump right here.
05:42 All right.
05:43 This pump is like a garbage disposal.
05:45 Yeah.
05:46 It has teeth inside of it that grind up
05:48 and pulverize what's going inside of it.
05:50 Don't put your fingers in there.
05:52 Whatever goes in there is going out that way...
05:54 In little pieces.
05:55 ...regardless to whether you want it to or not.
05:58 Hey!
06:02 Yo!
06:03 Man down.
06:05 Man down?
06:06 Man down.
06:07 Yeah, but he's back up.
06:09 Zach, don't touch that.
06:10 That's a garbage disposal.
06:12 I'll turn you into little pieces, Zach.
06:14 I like Zach.
06:15 He's a fine field producer and a good friend,
06:17 and I would love to see him avoid the deadly garbage disposal
06:21 for as long as possible.
06:22 Hey, I found some sunglasses here.
06:25 Yeah?
06:26 Look at that.
06:27 Hey, hey.
06:29 All right.
06:34 I'm looking at the world through s--t-covered glasses.
06:38 How much more work do you need?
06:44 I can't take on any more.
06:45 You're seriously that busy, that jammed?
06:47 As a one-man band, yeah.
06:49 Why don't you expand?
06:51 I have no desire to be a swimming pool conglomerate.
06:56 I just want to live a happy life...
06:58 Yeah?
06:59 ...provide enough for my family,
07:01 spend time with my friends.
07:03 A balanced life.
07:04 You found balance in a pool of death.
07:06 I found balance at 100 liner replacements a year.
07:09 What's a job like this cost?
07:11 A pool this size is about anywhere from $9 to $13 a square foot.
07:16 So it's like, what, $5,000?
07:17 Yeah, more or less.
07:18 Yeah, so 100 pools a year.
07:20 Yep.
07:21 $5,000 a pool, give or take.
07:22 Yep.
07:23 Got expenses, obviously.
07:24 Yeah, there's expenses.
07:26 How are your margins?
07:28 I'm good at 50/50.
07:31 That's not a bad living, man.
07:32 No.
07:33 Married? Kids?
07:34 Married. Got one son, 5 years old.
07:36 Yeah?
07:37 Yep.
07:38 He comes on runs with me the day after.
07:40 I'm going to come back on this pool once it's full.
07:42 Yeah?
07:43 And he likes to carry the buckets and the hoses and things like that,
07:47 just to help out.
07:48 He just wants to be involved.
07:49 He just wants to see his dad.
07:51 Sometimes I'll pick him up after school,
07:52 and we'll go do the start-up the next day.
07:56 When Dan does need some extra muscle,
07:58 he likes to keep it all in the family.
08:00 This is his cousin-in-law, Juan Pablo.
08:02 How are you?
08:03 How you doing?
08:04 I'm good.
08:05 Nice to meet you.
08:06 Nice to meet you.
08:07 Welcome to the show.
08:08 Thank you.
08:09 Thanks for showing up with a shovel.
08:10 He's my seasonal worker.
08:12 He helps out through the busiest time of the year.
08:15 Yeah, I don't see you doing this job alone.
08:18 I don't see anybody doing this alone.
08:19 I would have.
08:20 It would just take two days instead of one.
08:24 Here's a big frog.
08:26 I knew there was something alive in this water.
08:28 Where'd he go?
08:31 Pablo hates frogs.
08:32 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
08:33 But the thing about a leopard frog is you can put them into sleep.
08:37 Look at that.
08:38 You put them on their back.
08:39 And to think, I nearly went my whole life
08:41 without knowing how to put a frog to sleep.
08:43 He'll be back in here tonight.
08:46 What's in there?
08:47 Is that a frog?
08:48 I thought there was something in my boot.
08:49 That's a nail?
08:50 Yeah, through and through.
08:51 You know, honestly, I never wore heavy boots.
08:54 I just go in barefoot.
08:56 But I did a job, and the customer had a bogey-villia bush.
09:01 And they just took all the trimmings and threw it right into the bottom of the pool.
09:04 And bogey-villias have--you know, some of them have thorns an inch or two long.
09:08 And I stepped down on one, and it just went right through the bottom of my foot.
09:14 See, that's the way life is, man.
09:15 You can read about all the safety protocols.
09:18 It takes an accident for action.
09:20 I've had helpers in the past where they want to get it all done quick,
09:24 but it's too hot down here.
09:27 Yeah.
09:28 And if you overexert yourself early in the day, you can't recover.
09:30 You're out at 2.
09:32 It's a marathon, not a race.
09:34 Marathon, not a sprint.
09:35 We're going to take a break, let the camera guys eat,
09:37 assuming they have an appetite.
09:39 Hopefully that sucking monster will get the rest of the water out,
09:43 and this will dry up, and it'll be a little easier to shovel out.
09:45 And then we'll go ahead and cut the lining out,
09:47 and then we'll put a new lining in,
09:48 and we'll fill it up with cool, refreshing water, and then we'll leave.
09:53 Coming up--
09:54 I'm barefooting it.
09:55 We get an assist from Dan's dad.
09:57 I call him Florida Man Dave.
10:00 You're perfect for this show.
10:01 Yep.
10:06 People come from all over to vacation in West Palm Beach.
10:10 Not me.
10:11 I came here to rehabilitate a swimming pool that hasn't been cleaned in 17 years.
10:16 So far, we've drained most of it and shoveled out a few hundred pounds of crap.
10:20 Time now for more reinforcements.
10:25 What'd I miss?
10:26 I come to replace you.
10:28 Oh, yeah?
10:29 Yeah.
10:30 I've had it.
10:31 No thanks.
10:32 He's paid his dues.
10:33 Yeah?
10:34 This is my father, Dave.
10:35 This is the old man.
10:36 Gah, your boy was bragging about you.
10:37 How are you?
10:38 So nice to meet you.
10:39 I'm doing good, man.
10:40 It's good to meet you.
10:41 Doing good.
10:42 Did you ever think the pool that you built would be in this condition?
10:44 Yeah.
10:45 You're a pro.
10:46 Yep.
10:47 This ain't the first one.
10:48 Makes the world go round, doesn't it?
10:49 Makes jobs for us.
10:50 My philosophy when I started this business back in 1901 was build enough pools and all
10:54 you do is replace liners.
10:56 And you make as much money as you did building a whole stupid pool.
11:00 You maintain a supervisory posture.
11:02 I did.
11:03 That's where I am.
11:04 You get down there and start shoveling.
11:05 I'm going to hop in here for the glory.
11:06 All righty.
11:07 Let's get everything from that side over to this side so we can shovel it the rest of
11:10 the way out.
11:11 Okay.
11:12 You're less likely to break that.
11:14 So I'm just pushing stuff from the middle up?
11:17 Yeah.
11:18 Just everything over to that side.
11:19 If you're overcome with the urge to participate...
11:22 Listen, when it's time to put the liner in, I'll come down.
11:25 Because there are more tools than people.
11:27 I don't want you to feel left out.
11:28 Well, where's another shovel?
11:29 Oh, damn, there is another shovel.
11:31 I'm coming down to shovel.
11:33 I'm barefooting it.
11:34 I don't think that's a good idea.
11:36 Yep.
11:37 Oops.
11:38 That's...
11:39 Takes a special kind, man.
11:40 I don't trust shoes.
11:41 I swear.
11:42 I'm telling you, man, there's like roofing material all over the place.
11:47 I have neuropathy, Mike.
11:48 I don't feel anything.
11:49 You're perfect for this show.
11:51 Yep.
11:52 You got no feeling.
11:53 Okay.
11:54 You got a sense of smell?
11:56 Yep.
11:57 Yeah, then this is not the show for you.
12:00 [laughing]
12:02 Oh, this ain't as bad as sticking your arm up some cow's...
12:05 something.
12:06 Hey, man, that cow still calls me.
12:08 [laughing]
12:10 All the way out, all the way out, or else we have to shovel it twice.
12:14 I know, all the way out.
12:15 All the way out.
12:16 This is the technique, right?
12:17 What?
12:18 You want to put a little bit of back and a little bit of leg,
12:21 and you want to coordinate that effort.
12:23 You also want to flick your left wrist,
12:25 and you want to stop very suddenly,
12:27 so the, what you call the inertia, takes the crap in the shovel,
12:32 just clears the brick, and if you do it right, like a line drive,
12:35 it'll go right between that support and that tree.
12:38 A little something like this.
12:40 If you do it wrong, you wear it.
12:43 And is Dan your only son?
12:45 Yes, sir.
12:46 And he's been in the business since when?
12:49 You dragged him in when he was 12?
12:51 Sorry, I didn't know he was 12.
12:52 Seven years ago, he bought the business.
12:55 He bought it from you?
12:56 Yep.
12:57 That's a brilliant business model.
12:59 I know.
13:00 I'm losing my britches here.
13:02 They don't want to have that, do we?
13:04 It's a family show, Dave.
13:05 Yes, I heard that, that you're going family now, right?
13:07 All right.
13:08 Heads up, camera guys, he's losing his britches.
13:10 That's the last thing we want to see is Dave come out of retirement.
13:13 That's right, you don't want to see that.
13:15 Seriously, what was it like working with your kid when he was a kid?
13:18 Never complained about anything.
13:21 Really?
13:22 Dan goes do this, shovel that, never complained.
13:24 Can you teach work ethic?
13:26 No.
13:28 Is that like common sense?
13:30 You can't teach common sense.
13:32 Right?
13:33 It just doesn't work.
13:34 Right.
13:35 You got it or you don't got it?
13:37 All right, well, I'm going to do more shoveling because he'll yell at me.
13:40 You know how it is.
13:41 Well, we'll just occupy.
13:42 All right.
13:44 As I lose my pay and Dave loses his pants, Juan Pablo,
13:48 who harbors a very real aversion to frogs, is about to lose his mind.
13:53 Dan, what kind of frog is this?
13:55 That's another leopard frog.
13:57 You want to try that trick I showed you?
13:58 Yeah, I do.
13:59 Turn him over.
14:00 Yeah.
14:01 Hang on.
14:02 Turn him over and you're going to rub his belly.
14:04 Rub his belly and he'll fall asleep.
14:05 He'll go to sleep.
14:09 Isn't that cool?
14:10 All right, back to work.
14:12 Shovel, throw, repeat.
14:15 We're making progress, I think.
14:17 It feels like an impossible job when you show up.
14:22 I was just going to say, man, when I walked in here, I looked at it,
14:24 I thought there's no way.
14:26 There's just no way we're going to get this done in five hours.
14:31 And I was right.
14:32 It's going to take 10.
14:34 And the lining is the fastest part because it's already made.
14:37 All we've got to do is lay it in place.
14:39 I think we're done with the shovel for now.
14:42 If you want to hop up on the deck, get everything pushed back,
14:44 because at this point we're going to start getting this area around the pool clean as well.
14:55 See, if you would have put a little bit more elbow grease into your throws earlier,
14:58 you wouldn't have to do this.
14:59 That's right borderline on the edge if I told you so.
15:05 All right, Mike, that looks good for my house.
15:07 Good.
15:09 Come on back down here.
15:10 I've got a special tool for you to clean out the rest of these roots.
15:13 So right here is what's called the bead receiver.
15:15 The bead receiver is what accepts the liner.
15:19 That's the only thing that holds this liner in place, that and the water.
15:22 So that needs to be cleaned out.
15:24 So the first step is we've got to come in here and remove all this debris that's obstructing it
15:29 so we can remove it.
15:31 With that tool?
15:32 With this tool.
15:33 This is a grout removal tool, but I use it for a different purpose.
15:37 A bead?
15:38 Bead receiver.
15:39 Receiver.
15:40 Because those roots are obstructing that so we can't pull the liner out quite yet.
15:44 I'm cleaning out the schmutz from the bead receiver.
15:48 That's the schmutz, and this is the receiver.
15:52 The bead itself is this, and it goes right into there.
15:55 And if I understand everything Dan just told me, that's the only thing that's actually holding the lining in place.
16:03 Did you do this already?
16:04 Sure as heck don't look like it.
16:06 I'm just testing you.
16:09 Vinyl pool liners are extremely durable.
16:11 They're also non-porous, which means it won't require as many chemicals to treat as a plain concrete pool.
16:17 We're going to start pulling the liner out now.
16:19 You can see where the linings seam together.
16:21 You see the seam?
16:22 Yeah.
16:23 We're just going to cut the seam.
16:24 Start on that cut.
16:25 Yep.
16:32 You get that yet?
16:33 Wait a minute, what are you doing?
16:34 You're cutting all the way down around the steps.
16:36 Oh, I got it.
16:37 Follow the line.
16:38 I got it.
16:39 And then we're going to have a little race.
16:40 You're going to start here, and I'm going to start here, and we're going to see who gets to the other side.
16:43 We're not going to have a race.
16:44 Yeah, we are.
16:45 You've been doing this your whole life.
16:46 I just got here.
16:47 All right, start right here.
16:48 Yeah.
16:49 Hold your knife at a 45.
16:50 Yep.
16:51 And just start walking.
16:52 All right.
16:53 I'll meet you on the other side.
16:54 All right.
16:55 All right.
16:56 Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
16:58 Coming through.
16:59 Go, dude.
17:10 Hey.
17:11 Hey, hey, hey.
17:12 That's about halfway.
17:14 Remember earlier?
17:15 It's a marathon, not a race.
17:16 Go ahead, play that footage back.
17:18 It's a marathon, not a race.
17:21 Yeah, that was him.
17:23 I think what he meant was, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
17:26 I don't want to correct him on camera, but since he just ran circles around me on my own show, I will correct him in the voiceover.
17:33 Lift from the bottom.
17:35 Yeah, and wiggle it.
17:37 It'll pop right out.
17:39 And you can literally just shake it, and it pops right out.
17:43 Look at that.
17:44 That's magic, isn't it?
17:45 Otherwise, it would not come out.
17:46 Huh.
17:47 You know who taught him that?
17:48 Oh, here we go.
17:49 Don't tell me.
17:50 I have no idea.
17:51 Was it you?
17:52 Wasn't me.
17:53 So you don't want to get the last drop out of here?
17:55 Hey, shut up, rookie.
17:56 Yes, sir.
17:57 What are they doing now?
17:58 We're getting ready to put the foam pad on the walls.
18:00 You're going to do that before?
18:01 We're doing that now, as soon as you get out of my way.
18:05 Coming up, if tearing out an old liner looks hard, it's only because it is.
18:09 Are you taking another unauthorized break again?
18:12 Like I said, character building.
18:14 You're standing in my damn scene, man.
18:19 Sitting down the job.
18:20 I get it.
18:24 Welcome back to West Palm Beach, Florida, where the swimming pools do not clean themselves,
18:28 and nobody gets a break.
18:30 So just take your knife and do the best you can to clean these roots out of here.
18:34 Where's your glue and staple gun at, Dano?
18:35 It's in the big box right in front of you.
18:37 Wow, look at that.
18:38 Yeah, I never had any tools like this, automatic staple gun.
18:41 What would you know about an automatic staple gun?
18:43 You don't even wear shoes.
18:44 I don't.
18:45 Shoes and I don't agree.
18:49 If I put shoes on, I can't feel anything.
18:52 Yeah, like the sensation of a nail going through your toes.
18:55 But if you would see me in a pair of shoes, I'd act like a drunk.
18:59 To say it another way, no shirt, no shoes.
19:02 No problem.
19:03 I'm just here to soak up your knowledge, Dave.
19:06 Well, I know you will never use it.
19:09 Probably true.
19:11 You got your knife on you?
19:12 I got my knife right here, man.
19:13 Okay, we're going to get the bottom cut out.
19:14 Go ahead and start cutting the bottom out.
19:16 Try to stay along that line so we got a nice edge.
19:19 Oh, yeah, sorry. It just started cracking on its own.
19:22 Yeah, so that's what I was saying about trying to hold an edge with the knife to allow it to run.
19:26 Or you can just rip it, and it's just going to tear like a plastic piece of--okay.
19:30 Yeah, see, Dave, in the old days, we just used to tear these things.
19:33 Yeah.
19:34 Tear them right out.
19:35 I ripped them out with my bare hands.
19:37 It just seems like, boy, oh, boy, we could really have some fun tearing the ass out of this thing.
19:42 If you want to tear it, tear it, Mike.
19:43 Yes, that's what I want to do.
19:44 Tear it, Mike.
19:45 I want to tear it out. That's what I want to do.
19:46 Like we did in the old days.
19:47 Yes, like we did in the old days.
19:48 Right?
19:49 Yeah.
19:50 We didn't know you was going to stick it in, Mike.
19:51 Yeah, you just tore it out of there, and you're worried about folding it up later.
19:54 That's what you do. That's how you get the lining out of a pull.
19:57 You tear it out.
19:58 I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
20:00 If you're going to tear, tear with authority.
20:03 So take a scraper.
20:04 Yeah.
20:05 And hold it straight up and down like this.
20:07 Yeah.
20:08 And we're just going to pull it right along the wall.
20:10 All right.
20:11 Just like that.
20:12 A lot of nooks and crannies on this show.
20:16 This is very nooky, very cranny-ish.
20:23 Nooky, cranny, dirty, and yes, very tiring.
20:28 We're not too concerned about getting it spotless because we're going to do another layer of foam padding over it.
20:33 And you're not worried about the foam sticking to whatever this leftover gunk is.
20:37 Yeah, so, you know, we want it really clean, but --
20:40 But not really clean.
20:43 There's different levels of cleanliness.
20:46 I know. There's different levels of dirt, too.
20:48 If you guys could not walk on them from this point on, it would be great.
20:52 That's you.
20:54 And that's you.
20:56 And that's you.
20:58 Are you taking another unauthorized break again?
21:01 You know what I was doing?
21:03 I was checking in with my crew to make sure everybody's all right.
21:05 You all right? You all right?
21:07 All right. All right.
21:09 So we're going to start in the middle here.
21:11 Keep your hands next to mine here.
21:12 Start in the middle.
21:13 We're going to get it flush with the wall.
21:15 Okay.
21:16 Okay?
21:17 Just get the back for right now.
21:18 I don't think this is flush with the wall.
21:19 Okay, lift it up.
21:20 Yeah.
21:21 All right.
21:22 Watch me first.
21:23 Yeah.
21:24 I'm going to start in the middle.
21:25 I'm going to work my way towards the corner.
21:26 All right.
21:27 This is more like upholstery work.
21:29 That's where the finesse starts with the job.
21:31 All right.
21:32 Yeah, that's cement.
21:33 The liquid cement.
21:34 Spray glue.
21:35 Spray?
21:36 Spray glue.
21:37 Spray glue.
21:38 Do not get it on you.
21:39 I don't have any acetone.
21:40 Acetone's the only thing that takes that off.
21:41 That's enough.
21:42 That's $30 a can now.
21:44 Well, we don't have that kind of dough.
21:45 Yeah, start in the middle right here.
21:47 All right.
21:48 And we're going to work our way down.
21:49 Yeah.
21:50 And then down like this.
21:51 Straight down.
21:52 Straight down.
21:53 Because you're going to get a wrinkle if you--
21:54 All right.
21:55 Straight down the whole way.
21:56 Whole way.
21:57 Yep.
21:58 And then just a little bit more tread.
21:59 [music playing]
22:00 [spraying]
22:03 Mike, dial it down, man.
22:05 $30 a can.
22:06 I know, but I just don't want to be
22:07 the guy responsible for having this thing come up
22:09 20 years from now.
22:10 Hold on.
22:11 Start in the middle.
22:12 [music playing]
22:14 Oh, boy.
22:15 I didn't do that.
22:16 I did not do that.
22:18 I don't know who did that, but it wasn't me.
22:21 It's critical the new vinyl adhere properly
22:23 to the bottom of the pool.
22:25 So Dave is smoothing out the uneven spots with concrete.
22:29 The rain is coming.
22:30 You can smell it in the air.
22:31 It's the ozone, right?
22:32 You can smell it down here.
22:33 You could-- well, you smell something.
22:35 Anyway, the rain's coming, so we have to move fast.
22:37 There, I built some stakes. Good.
22:38 What do you want?
22:39 You're standing in my damn cement.
22:40 Oh.
22:41 Dave calls it cement.
22:42 I'm not going to correct him on camera, because there's
22:44 no time for corrections.
22:45 As you might recall, this is a marathon, not a race,
22:49 or a sprint, or whatever.
22:51 What's in the box?
22:52 The liner.
22:53 The liner's in the box.
22:54 We're going to go over here in the deep end with it.
22:56 Got to go over there with it.
22:58 Is this far enough?
22:59 All the way-- oh, down goes Dave.
23:02 Wow, he's down.
23:03 He's up.
23:04 Take that off.
23:05 No, that's going in.
23:06 Oh, no.
23:07 You can call it a marathon, or you can call it a sprint.
23:10 People fall down in both, right?
23:12 So we're going to gently bring this down.
23:15 This is the lining.
23:16 It cannot get a hole in it.
23:18 It's strong, but if we were to drag it in this condition--
23:21 Yeah.
23:22 --across the floor--
23:23 It would actually poke a hole in it.
23:25 All right, so try not to step in the cement.
23:28 But there's cements everywhere.
23:29 I know it is.
23:30 How do you not step in the cement?
23:31 You have to remember where it's at.
23:33 Where are you going?
23:34 He stepped in the cement.
23:36 Stepped in the cement.
23:38 I keep fixing it.
23:41 If there is a finish line in this race,
23:43 I got to think we're getting close.
23:45 Fluff it?
23:46 Yep.
23:47 A typical vinyl pool liner lasts between 10 and 15 years,
23:50 so this one should be good to go for at least that long.
23:53 Watch how the bead hooks in.
23:55 It just snaps into place like that.
23:57 Yeah.
23:58 OK.
23:59 Look at that.
24:00 We're probably going to walk this all the way around.
24:01 We're going to walk it around.
24:02 You're going to start here.
24:03 And just every couple of feet, tack it in.
24:05 And then you go back, and you do what you've already tacked in.
24:07 Well, how's all this going to get smoothed out on the bottom?
24:09 You watch.
24:10 Here comes where the magic comes.
24:11 All right, Mike, here comes the vacuum.
24:13 We're going to suck this all into place.
24:15 I got the best job for you.
24:16 Come here.
24:17 Over there.
24:18 We get to sit down.
24:19 Yeah, for real.
24:20 Pull this material up.
24:22 There's a seam right here.
24:23 We're trying to get this material right up here.
24:26 And watch the magic happen from the stadium.
24:29 Your butt sitting on the liner is replicating the water.
24:32 Atmospheric pressure.
24:34 Are you getting that?
24:35 He's talking about atmospheric pressure.
24:37 Yeah, atmospheric pressure.
24:38 He's sucking the oxygen out of the area between the liner and the concrete or the cement,
24:45 and that's basically creating the same effect as the weight of the water on the liner?
24:49 Yes.
24:50 Right?
24:51 And so it's smoothing it out.
24:52 I didn't know how they would-- how are they going to smooth it out, I said to myself.
24:56 Well, by a lot of sucking.
24:59 That's it.
25:00 Liner's in.
25:01 How long is it going to take to fill this thing up?
25:03 Overnight.
25:04 You were awesome.
25:05 Thank you, Mike.
25:06 Really, thanks for having us out.
25:07 We learned a bunch.
25:08 I made a new friend.
25:09 Hey, seriously, man, what a great business, what a great story.
25:12 You guys were awesome.
25:13 Thank you.
25:14 Thank you.
25:15 Keep it clean.
25:16 And just like that, another dirty job is in the can, and with it, another American success story.
25:21 Dave, Dan, and Juan Pablo are a family affair, and one day, young Darren here will join them
25:28 in the deep end of the pool, proving yet again that hard work, skilled labor, and the willingness
25:33 to get your hands dirty can still lead to something that looks a lot like success.
25:38 And yeah, you can write that in cement.
25:42 After a day like this, people often say to me, "Micro, how much soap do you guys go through on dirty jobs?"
25:48 Well, the answer is a lot.
25:50 My crew has gotten dirty in more ways than you can imagine, and taken more showers and more motels
25:56 than you can count, which begs the obvious, or perhaps not so obvious question,
26:01 what happens to all that leftover soap?
26:05 Coming up, we'll answer that question and leave you with another one.
26:09 I hate to say it, but I'm looking at pubic hair.
26:11 How can something with such a clean reputation--
26:14 I didn't want you to see that part.
26:15 --be so downright disgusting?
26:17 Every day in hotels all over the world, guests unwrap over 11 million bars of soap,
26:28 most of which they barely use.
26:30 Have you ever wondered where all that barely used soap ends up?
26:33 The answer is right here.
26:36 Well, at least some of it.
26:38 John Cipler runs--what's this called?
26:41 Clean the World.
26:42 How would I have ever guessed?
26:43 I love it.
26:45 Clean the World is a soap recycling company here in Orlando, Florida.
26:49 How is what you're doing actually going to clean the whole wide world?
26:53 Well, in 13 years, we've sent 70 million bars of soap to 127 countries.
27:00 So we are well on our way to cleaning the world.
27:03 And so we'll do that across the United States, and we'll do that in places across the globe
27:07 where we have access to soap and hygiene products that you and I regularly have access to.
27:12 Oh, I haven't used a hygiene product in many years, Sean.
27:14 What's in soap?
27:16 Soap has water, oil, and it has lye.
27:19 And those are the main ingredients that do all the cleaning.
27:22 It's not complicated ingredients.
27:23 As a matter of fact, we blend it all together, so it's all going to come together.
27:26 But we've got to clean it, we've got to sterilize it,
27:28 and we've got to make sure that it does not look like this
27:31 when it goes to somebody who we're trying to help.
27:33 This is not soap.
27:34 Why is it in here?
27:35 This is coming from a hotel, and at the back of the hotel,
27:38 they sometimes mistake our bins for trash cans.
27:41 So we often get what would be just sort of considered trash put into our bins,
27:46 and that's one of the fun things we get to do here is sort all that stuff out.
27:49 Well, that sounds terrific.
27:51 You are going to get your hands dirty recycling soap.
27:53 Will I have to wash my hands when I'm finished recycling soap?
27:57 We recommend it. Just add water, and you're good to go.
28:00 We start by weighing and opening the hundreds of boxes
28:04 that are being shipped from over 7,000 hotels all over the country.
28:09 I'm looking at bottles, I'm looking at soap, I'm looking at--
28:13 I hate to say it, but I'm looking at pubic hair.
28:15 We sort out the soap from what you call the--
28:18 Why is it brown?
28:20 Why is it brown?
28:21 Not soap.
28:23 Weighing the boxes lets us know the impact that each hotel is having on the planet.
28:28 We can calculate exactly how much weight we're keeping out of landfills.
28:32 41 pounds. 41.
28:34 As well as how much water and energy are being saved.
28:37 This appears to be mixed.
28:39 There's lubricant, there's all of it.
28:42 Now normally you'd have a couple of people doing this.
28:45 Yeah, for sure. Carlos, you want to come in here and help Mark?
28:47 Carlos, why don't you come on over here, introduce yourself.
28:49 How you doing, Mark? My name is Carlos.
28:51 Carlos, it's great to meet you. Always.
28:53 What's your official job title here?
28:56 I'm a soap whisperer.
28:58 A soap whisperer? Yeah, I'm a soap whisperer.
29:00 So why don't you and I work on this together?
29:02 Clean the World receives up to 40 boxes of soap from hotels each day.
29:07 At 40 pounds per box, that's over 4 tons a week.
29:11 What's the weirdest thing you ever came across when you opened up a box of what should have been just soap?
29:16 Used condoms.
29:18 Used condoms, good. Yeah, because nobody throws away the new ones.
29:22 41, maybe 39.
29:25 Getting close.
29:26 You might want to pick up the pace a little bit, Mike, because we got other jobs to go to.
29:30 Just a little, not too much, but just a little, Mike.
29:33 First of all, Carlos, I'm working with razor sharp implements.
29:36 Secondly, I'm dealing with real human hair.
29:40 Oh, I didn't want you to see that part, Mike.
29:43 I'm pretty sure that's scalp hair.
29:46 Oh, pretty sure. Could be back hair.
29:52 In addition to soap, Sean also accepts shampoo bottles.
29:56 They recycle the plastic and turn the shampoo into a cleaning solution.
30:01 For a minute there, I thought it was what we were talking about before.
30:07 I thought we might have found a used one.
30:09 Oh, you're getting close.
30:10 This is the most extraordinary condom I've ever seen.
30:13 Well, you know, if you don't have nothing else, Mike, you know we got to use what we got to use.
30:17 Now that the last box is dumped, Carlos gets the feeder going,
30:21 which will push the items down this conveyor belt,
30:23 where Sean and I will separate the soap from the bottles from the trash and put it all into different boxes.
30:30 So when did this whole business become a thing to you?
30:36 Like, when did the light bulb go off?
30:38 So about 13 years ago, I ran a global sales team for a tech company,
30:43 and I was on the road four nights a week.
30:45 And in a hotel one night, I called the front desk and asked what happened to the bar of soap and bottle of shampoo
30:50 when I was done with it, and they said it was thrown away.
30:53 So I did some research, kind of did some math, figured out if all hotels were throwing their soap away.
30:57 We were throwing away millions of bars of soap every single day out of the hotel.
31:01 Every day. It's mind-boggling.
31:03 But the real aha moment for Clean the World came when we found a bunch of studies that back in 2009,
31:10 there were 9,000 children every day dying to hygiene-related illnesses, pneumonia and diarrheal disease.
31:18 And all these studies showed that if we just gave them soap, we could cut those deaths in half.
31:23 And so that kind of became the moment that I said, "Wow, we can take this soap, prevent it from hitting landfill,
31:30 recycle it, and send it to mothers and children locally and all over the world who in so many cases are literally dying
31:37 because of lack of proper hygiene."
31:39 In the 13 years we've been doing this, the death rate to children under the age of 5 dying to hygiene-related illnesses
31:46 has come down by 60%.
31:48 Come on! Are you serious?
31:51 Millions of children's lives.
31:53 Are you getting all this, man?
31:54 Because, I mean, one minute you're standing here, you're feeling like a knucklehead trying to separate bottles from soap.
32:00 The next minute you realize you're saving lives.
32:03 Making a big difference.
32:05 Hey, come on now. Y'all going too slow. You're letting stuff down here.
32:08 Yeah, I think so.
32:09 You're letting stuff down here.
32:10 Oh, Lordy, come on, Mike. Y'all let too much stuff get by.
32:13 Now it's "I Love Lucy."
32:16 Sorry.
32:17 Clean the World also assembles hygiene kits that include recycled soap
32:21 and are supplied to local shelters and relief organizations.
32:25 Carlos wants to show me how to clean the refiner screens.
32:30 All right, okay.
32:32 So that's a dirty screen.
32:33 That's a dirty screen. So my in and everything is in that screen, Mike.
32:36 Dandruff.
32:37 Dandruff.
32:38 Absolutely.
32:39 Snot.
32:40 Not quite snot.
32:41 Semen.
32:42 Possibility.
32:43 The refiner is the machine that breaks down the soap in order to clean it.
32:48 But before we clean the soap, we have to clean the screens.
32:51 Maybe some goggles wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
32:54 I'm just trying to keep some of this anonymous sperm out of my eyes.
32:57 It's okay, Mike. You know we all had sperm on us before. It's okay.
33:01 It ain't going to hurt you, Mike. It ain't going to hurt you.
33:03 Clean screens. Coming soon.
33:07 This is the refiner.
33:09 Break them all until they all fall off.
33:13 Now, Mike, as you can see, that's the screen that's behind it.
33:16 Yes.
33:17 And you see all of this?
33:18 I do.
33:19 This is all bad soap.
33:20 First, we take off the dirty screen and replace it with the one I just cleaned.
33:25 But check out the dirty one.
33:26 It's like the surface of an alien planet.
33:31 Now I'm shaving off the dirty soap and installing the clean screen so we can start the actual cleaning process.
33:38 There you go.
33:41 You want to turn it on?
33:42 Once the refiner screen is in place, the dirty soap goes through the refiner where it's shredded.
33:49 It really smells. It smells very pretty.
33:53 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
33:54 It makes my eyes water. It's so clean, it burns.
34:00 It doesn't matter the type or the color of the soap.
34:03 Inside the refiner, it's one big melting pot.
34:07 Every bar of soap represents a great mystery.
34:13 A little slice of the human condition.
34:15 Proof positive that weary travelers around the world, stopping in weigh stations here and there,
34:21 pausing to rinse the crud off their bodies and possibly abuse themselves, it all comes here.
34:28 Smells like victory.
34:30 And humanity.
34:32 And sperm.
34:35 I think we're full.
34:37 Okay, cool. Just shut the door, Mike, and come on down.
34:40 Ah, that's how I get dirty, Mike.
34:45 I've never felt so clean and so filthy at the same time.
34:48 Oh, yeah. Sometimes when I go home, I don't need to use no soap.
34:51 I have it all on me, Mike.
34:53 Coming up...
34:55 I need six of them buckets in there, Mike.
34:57 You already have me behind all day. I need six of them buckets, Mike.
35:00 You got a lot of pressure?
35:04 Sure.
35:05 Let's chop up some twin craft over here.
35:08 Whenever I'm going through a bad day or something, Mike, I just come over here and I...
35:13 I just chop them down, Mike.
35:15 You know, when my boss man done make me mad, I just come over here and...
35:20 Take it out on this, Mike.
35:23 I like it. I like it.
35:25 It's just a few racks, Mike. Go ahead.
35:27 I was just thinking about a couple of network executives I know.
35:30 Oh, yeah. Go ahead, Mike.
35:31 You don't want to try?
35:32 Yeah, there you go.
35:33 Oh, yeah.
35:36 Good soap.
35:37 Welcome back to Orlando, Florida, where I am recycling soap at Clean the World with Carlos, the Soap Whisperer.
35:50 I need six of them buckets in there, Mike. Come on down.
35:53 All right. Six buckets.
35:55 You already have me behind all day. I need six of them buckets, Mike.
35:59 Carlos has been employed at Clean the World for 11 years now,
36:05 slowly working his way up through the company to become supervisor.
36:09 Is this where you're going to retire from, you think?
36:12 You're going to stick with this organization for as long as you're around?
36:15 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm hoping.
36:16 You know, my boss man told me, you know, as long as I stick it out with him, he'll take care of me.
36:22 He's been right so far. That's why I'm still here, Mike.
36:24 He seems like a good enough guy, Sean.
36:26 Oh, no. Yeah, he's an excellent guy. He's an excellent guy, man. He changed my life.
36:30 Did he really?
36:31 Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Because I used to stay in the hood.
36:33 Yeah.
36:34 I was able, once I got this job, I was able to move from the hood and get me a three-bedroom house.
36:39 Is it fair to say that soap helped you clean up your act?
36:43 Oh, absolutely, Mike.
36:44 Oh, yeah. You can use that one. You can use it.
36:46 Once I add a few more buckets, we'll add the sterilization solution, which will rinse off any remaining impurities and bacteria.
36:54 Okay, there's six.
37:02 Okay, let's get on up here, Mike, because this is where we inject the solution.
37:05 This is how the solution gets on the soap.
37:07 Yep.
37:08 Okay, we're going to turn this on, Mike.
37:11 All right, here it is.
37:13 Now, the soap is sterilized.
37:16 Then, it's broken down further in order to be molded into soap bars.
37:20 But right now, the recycled soap is looking like anything but soap.
37:24 It actually looks good enough to eat.
37:26 Looks like popcorn.
37:28 It's not.
37:29 You probably shouldn't eat it, on account of the lie.
37:33 It'll kill you.
37:35 So, you want to see it come out?
37:38 I want to see the soap come out.
37:39 Oh, yeah.
37:40 There's a plotter here, and it can pass the soap together and mold it.
37:45 The plotter is pushing it through, and this is actually compressing it, but also putting the logo on it.
37:51 Absolutely.
37:52 So, it's coming out of here at a fairly slow speed, works its way around, gets chopped, drops on this little conveyor belt.
38:01 And then, over here, we have Royce, who's picking them up and putting them in a box.
38:07 I feel like I need to sit where you're sitting and try to do this.
38:10 Okay.
38:11 So, they go, it's this way, right?
38:13 Right.
38:14 Okay.
38:15 And, Mike, keep in memory, Mike.
38:16 Yeah.
38:17 My saying over here is, if you see a piece of bar soap that you won't put on your body, don't put it in the bar so a kid can put it on their body.
38:26 Sorry, Carlos, I'm concentrating right now, so I'm only taking in about half of what you're telling me.
38:30 Oh, well, that's okay.
38:31 You'll get it sooner or later.
38:32 I got a lot going on right now.
38:36 I don't see how you can do it at that speed.
38:38 Okay, let me show you.
38:39 Ah, the gentle clinking of clean soap.
38:49 Music to my ears.
38:50 Royce here catches eight bars of soap at a time, and she boxes an average of 38,000 bars daily.
38:58 I feel like if this soap thing doesn't work out, you could have a bright future dealing cards in a casino.
39:04 So this is what we're shooting for, right?
39:06 It's a clean the world bar of soap, gray in color, and the product of many, many, many, many, many, many, many countless bars.
39:13 Oh, absolutely.
39:14 All mixed together.
39:15 After the recycled soap is boxed, it gets placed on the pallet.
39:19 48 boxes for one pallet.
39:22 That equals 9,600 bars of recycled soap.
39:26 Because you got to think about it, Mike.
39:28 This soap is saving a kid's life.
39:29 I know.
39:30 How'd it make you feel?
39:31 Seriously, when you realized you were doing something that mattered, you know, like really impacted people.
39:39 My passion went through the roof.
39:41 Did it?
39:42 Oh, yeah.
39:43 My passion went right through the roof.
39:44 You got to have, like, four main things in order to run this soap machine.
39:48 You got to have tender, love, care, and passionate is the number one.
39:52 If you don't have passionate, you will never run this here.
39:55 You're doing a thing now that's helping kids all over the world.
39:59 Absolutely.
40:00 I guess sometimes the only way to make sense out of life is to either get your hands dirty or get your hands really, really, really clean.
40:07 Or maybe a little of both.
40:09 Yeah?
40:10 Oh, absolutely.
40:11 Mike, thank you, man.
40:12 It was a joy working with you, man.
40:14 I'm not leaving.
40:15 I'm going to be here for the next five hours.
40:16 Oh, okay.
40:17 No, I'm never leaving.
40:18 Oh, okay, baby.
40:19 We got more work to do.
40:20 I got plenty of work.
40:21 Hey, Mike, I got something you want to do.
40:23 And there you have it.
40:24 Two great stories of people getting dirty in order to get clean.
40:29 From a family of hard-working pool cleaners, unafraid to dive into the deep end, to an intrepid crew of bloody do-gooders.
40:37 Roycee, the soap stacker, Carlos, the soap whisperer, and Sean, the clean freak who started it all.
40:44 Just a few folks on the front line of making our dirty world a cleaner place, one recycled bar of soap at a time.
40:57 And so another Dirty Jobs comes to an end, and the Dirty Jobs crew does the only sensible thing they can.
41:04 They strip down, and they try to stay clean in an otherwise dirty world.
41:08 Hey, if you run a hotel and you'd like to help, cleantheworld.org.
41:12 Look them up, send them your dirty soap.
41:14 Carlos is standing by to separate the bottles from the lye and the suds and all that stuff.
41:19 In the meantime, if you're waiting for me to take that camera and go inside to see what manner of depravity is unfolding, keep waiting.
41:26 It's not going to happen. It's just too weird, even for this show.
41:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]