We are so excited to announce that we have teamed up with the Green Salon Collective to become a more sustainable salon.
The Green Salon Collective’s key goal is to recycle and reuse salon waste, focusing on specialist items like hair and metal.
They use hair in over 10 different ways, including cleaning up oil spills, and donate all their profits from recycling metals.
They compost salon towels. They generate energy from chemical waste and PPE and so far, they have diverted over 100 tons of salon waste from landfill or incineration.
So this means that when you come in the salon for your appointment, we can now recycle the colour tube/can used, hair foils, all plastics including shampoo and conditioner bottles etc, the towel we use for you, all the styling product containers and the best thing of all we can now recycle your hair!
Here are the 10 ways that green salon collective use the hair that is collected by us:
1. Composting and Gardening
Hair is rich in Nitrogen, making it an ideal fertiliser for local and industrial composting.
2. Waterway Clean-ups
Hair adsorbs oil and pollutants, even in water. We’ve used hair in this way to clean up oil spills and polluted rivers across the UK and Ireland.
3. Hair Mats
By felting hair with our unique machinery, we can create a hair mat that can be used to cover storm drains or clean up waterways.
4. Regenerative Biomanufacturing
Working with Biohm, a London based regenerative biomanufacturer, your hair is being combines with their unique binding material ‘orb’, to create particleboard-like sheets as well as moulded 3D objects. They are also working with mycelium, the root structure of fungi, to grow around hair to create insulation panels.
5. Wool Alternatives
We are collaborating with Natural Fibre Co., a British woollen mill in Cornwall, to develop a hair-wool fibre alternative to petroleum or cotton based yarns, ropes and twines. Our current blend is 40:60 hair and wool blend using salon’s waste hair and undervalued, destined-for-compost wool.
6. Hair Rope Making
We have created a truly unique workshop with our research partner, Sanne Visser, Design Researcher in Residence at The Design Museum. Our workshops invite people to explore hair rope making while inspiring them to rethink the concept of waste.
7. Hair Felt
Our Head of R&D, Stephanie Hodgson, is conducting an experiment to test the ability of ‘potting felt’ a product for houseplants made from salon hair waste, to save water, deter pests, and release nitrogen into the soil.
8. Architecture
Collaborating with architecture and research firm, Pareid, we explore the application of salon hair waste in architecture and building materials. Pareid are interested in visibly showcasing the presence of hair in final products and instalments as a way to compel people to consider the material not as waste but as a resource.
9. Wigs
We can use even the shortest of hair in the Green Salon Collective hair recycling projects, however, when the hair is long enough to create a wig, that is what we will do.
10. Art
Working with dressmakers and designers, we can turn hair into dresses and clothes. In 2022, Green Salon Collective were featured in museums across the UK and Europe showcasing what can be done with hair.
To find out more about what the Green Salon Collective do, with all the recycling they collect from salons like us, please clink the following link: www.greensaloncollective.com
We are so proud to be doing what we can to make an impact on working towards a greener future.