Don Aslett Museum of Clean
Pocatello, Idaho
Cleaning company millionaire Don Aslett first had the idea for a museum about cleanliness in 1984, but it wasn't until 2012 that he finally opened his Museum of Clean to the public. The delay, he told us, was mostly because he is so fussy.
Don, the "King of Clean," spent $6 million of his own money to open the Museum of Clean, and lucky visitors sometimes find themselves with Don as their enthusiastic tour guide. The Museum, he repeatedly explains, is not a cleaning museum (although it does have many museum-worthy sweepers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and toilets). It's a museum of clean. Its goal, Don says, is to teach every visitor how to be clean and to want to be clean. This includes having "clean language" and "clean minds."
Visitors to the Museum of Clean can learn how to clean windows, clean their homes, clean their cars, clean themselves. They'll learn that "clean is the most beautiful thing on the earth," according to Don, and about how lucky we are to live in a time when it's easy to be clean.
The Museum occupies a 90-year-old-building that, of course, had to be thoroughly cleaned before Don could move in. Idaho awarded it the "2013 Pollution Prevention Champion Award" because conservation and recycling for a clean environment are part of being clean, too.