Going green

A new initiative that’s being rolled out across Ireland and the UK is part of a global effort to make the hairdressing industry more sustainable

A new Ireland and UK salon sustainability initiative that launched during the summer, now has 14 Irish businesses on board, and hopes to add more. Founded by environmental experts, hairdressers and eco campaigners, Green Salon Collective is a start-up that is aiming to facilitate salon sustainability by recycling the unrecyclable. Its goal is to be able to collect as close to 100% of all salon waste as physically possible, and to then fi nd new uses for it that reward the salon, the environment and the community.

“We were ready to launch the week of the Covid-19 lockdown in March, but we had to hold off,” says Fry Taylor, who is one of Green Salon Collective’s founders. “But during that time hairdressers – and non-hairdressers – did a lot of thinking and plenty of research. In April, Kate Brandt, head of sustainability at Google, said that the search for ‘how to live more sustainably’ had gone up over 4000%. I think Covid has helped people to refl ect on what is important, and what is needed.”

So far there are 14 salons in the Republic of Ireland signed up to Green Salon Collective, including Susan Collins Home of Hair in Greystones, Co Wicklow; Romina Daniel, Vanilla Hair, Maven Hair Studio and Wildfl ower in Dublin; and Pin-Up Hair in Inishannon, Co Cork. Three salons in Northern Ireland have joined, while there are 140 salons in the UK that are now part of the collective.

“Hair recycling and hair booms have been on my radar for many years now, and with the wealth of information available online and on social media, I have followed pages such as @sustainablesalonsanz,” says Donna O' Neill, owner of Pin-Up Hair. “I always thought it would be great to have such resources here in Ireland. And then @thegreensaloncollective popped up on my Instagram feed. I loved the idea of recycling colour tubes and hair foils, and even colour waste.”

Salons and freelance stylists can join from around €135, explains Taylor. “That’s the only up-front cost, and it covers the salon bins, bin bags, marketing tools and education. Salons then start to charge their clients a €1-2 ‘green fee’; this extra income covers the costs of us collecting the waste from the salons. It's a cost-neutral ‘pay as you play’ system.”

Signing up

O’Neill has found the Green Salon Collective process very straightforward and user-friendly. “All you have to do is go on the website and purchase a registration pack to start,” she explains. “There are a few options; you can choose which one will suit your salon best. Then your bins, bin bags and marketing materials arrive. You can also buy your returns box at this point, or you can wait until you have enough ‘green fees’ saved up. This works out at around €1 per client, which I think is a bargain. Once you have a few bags of hair, metals and plastic, you fi ll up your returns box, call Green Salon Collective, and it gets picked up the next day. It’s even easier than recycling at home; there’s no rinsing, sorting or thinking. Each bin has a label, and when it's full, you just transfer it to the returns box.”

‘By signing up with Green Salon Collective, you've nothing to lose, and a world of good to gain’

She believes that it’s more important now than ever for salons to be sustainable. “A lot of salons think now that recycling is a waste of time, when we see the amount of PPE waste that has been generated in the last six months. Many will be thinking ‘what's the point in trying?’. But I've sourced as much compostable PPE as possible to try and do my bit. As much as I hate to say it, sometimes you just need a pair of latex gloves when you're bringing through a level one tint. And when you do, you can rest assured that by throwing them into your designated PPE bin, even these will be turned into green energy. By signing up with Green Salon Collective, you've nothing to lose, and a world of good to gain.”

Taylor says that becoming a ‘green salon’ is hugely benefi cial for business. “As a client, if you knew that one salon was recycling your hair, foil and leftover colour, and you had to pay an extra euro, and the salon next door wasn't doing any of those things, which one would you chose? Salons on our system attract more like-minded clients; and more clients equals more income.”