FROM beer barrels to bathroom bubbles, yesterday’s leftovers are becoming today’s handmade soaps thanks to an innovative Ipswich business proving there’s more than one way to clean up waste.
The Upcycled Soap Company is transforming unwanted beer, used coffee grounds and surplus fruit into soaps and personal-care products, giving discarded ingredients a second life while teaching hundreds of locals about sustainability.
Founded by Lisa Carroll, the Ipswich-region business is working with breweries, markets and local producers to recover ingredients that would otherwise go unused, putting circular-economy principles into practice.
The company has also introduced approximately 400 children and 50 adults to soapmaking and sustainability through community workshops, expanding its reach beyond handmade products and into environmental education.
But the unlikely business venture began in 2022 when Ms Carroll was searching for ways to cover an expensive veterinary bill for her Border Collie, Bailey.
After stumbling across an old Tooheys New beer-soap recipe, she began experimenting with beer in soapmaking before sharing samples with a local brewery.
By 2024, those experiments had developed into The Upcycled Soap Company, a commercial venture built around the circular economy and its guiding philosophy, “Break the Cycle, Build the Circle”.
“We don’t like to think of these ingredients as waste. We call them rediscovered resources,” Ms Carroll said.
The company has since established relationships with producers across the region, incorporating over- fermented beer from Soapbox Beer, surplus beer from Ipswich’s Stony Creek Brewing and avocados and bananas from Yamanto Country Markets into its soapmaking.
Ms Carroll has also explored using reclaimed camel fat from Summer Land Camels at Harrisville, extending the business’s approach to materials that might otherwise be overlooked.
While soapmaking remains at the heart of the operation, Ms Carroll is increasingly focused on changing attitudes towards waste, particularly among younger generations.
Through workshops delivered at Ipswich City Council programs, shopping centres and community events, The Upcycled Soap Company has introduced hundreds of participants to the science of soapmaking and the practical benefits of reusing resources.
“We want people to start looking at resources differently,” Ms Carroll said.
