There are four scenarios:
1. The floor is already clean
2. The floor is dirty
3. The soap is clean
4. The soap is dirty
If the floor is already clean, and the soap is clean, you will have to pick up the soap, put it where it belongs and then clean the soap residue off of the already clean floor. Nothing more should be required.
If the floor is dirty and the soap was clean before it hit the floor, then now the soap is dirty. You will have to pick up the soap, wash it, and then put it away. Now you have a bigger problem. The clean soap touched the dirty floor in one spot. You can’t just clean on spot on a dirty floor, it would not make sense. So now you have to clean the whole floor.
If the floor was clean and the soap was dirty, now the floor is contaminated with dirtiness. You will have to pick up the soap, wash it, and then clean the contaminated floor.
Now if the soap was dirty before it fell, and the floor was dirty before the soap fell on it, you will have to gather the soap, clean it, put it away and then clean the whole floor.
And now, to complicate things more, what if you picked up the soap with dirty hands? Are your hands still dirty or are your hands now clean? Or, Maybe you have clean hands and picked up a dirty soap bar. Now what is dirty and what is clean? In the food processing industry, which I am a part of, we would say that all is contaminated and all has to be washed again. So to be safe and to be absolutely certain that everything is clean, it is the best practice to wash everything when in doubt.
If you did not mean “a bar of soap”, then all of this is out the window. I will have to start over. Like liquid soap is way different. Powdered soap is a whole other process .
