Recycle Week
East Midlands salon group, KH Hair, has revealed that, since joining a recycling initiative just three months ago, it has diverted 83kg of metals and foil from landfill – that’s about as heavy as three Dalmatians!*
Since partnering with Green Salon Collective (“GSC“) in a bid to increase recycling of waste and reduce pollution in the environment, the Group’s 21 salons have also collected:
58 litres of colour and bleach (about 10 times more liquid than the amount of blood in the human body*).
31kg of hair (about seven times heavier than your average domestic cat*).
4kg of PPE and plastic (about three times heavier than the human brain*).
The figures were revealed ahead of National Recycle Week (20-26 September), an annual event organised by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) which aims to encourage businesses and individuals across the nation to recycle more of the right things, more often.
GSC provide salons with a service to recycle traditionally impossible to recycle items such as hair, foil, chemicals, and colour tubes. In-salon separation kits for hair, metal, and chemicals, prevent them being sent to landfill and allowing almost every single piece of waste to be turned into something new and KH Hair managing director, Darren Messias, says staff and clients alike have really embraced the scheme.
“We are delighted with the positive feedback we have had from our clients and teams.” he said. “Sustainability is a very important issue to our company and, although we were already recycling some of our waste, it always troubled us that we couldn’t find a more responsible way of disposing of our hair, metal and chemical waste.”
Since its launch in July 2020:
GSC has sent 10,050kg of metals, predominantly dirty hair foil, colour tubes and aerosol cans, to be recycled by its specialist metal recycler in the UK.
2,000kg of hair has been diverted from landfill and sent to GSC’s industrial composting partner who have used it as a valuable component in their compost mix.
13,000kg of plastic and PPE has been kept from our oceans and landfill and has been recycled (all plastics) or sent through the same process as chemicals (PPE).
This all adds up to a total weight of 25,050kg – 25.65 tonnes. That’s more than the weight of eight baby blue whales!**
In addition, several hundred litres of excess chemical and bleach waste has been diverted from our sinks and waterways and gone through a waste to energy process, creating clean energy that has been sent back to the national grid.
“We love the fact that hair that has previously just been thrown in the bin is now being used to clean up oil spills and make compost to grow food.” added Darren. “Plus, instead of throwing chemical waste down the sink, it’s being used to generate electricity.” It feels great to be doing our bit to look after our world during these very uncertain times.”
WRAP has reported that last year’s Recycle Week “shifted people’s views”, with 73% saying they are prepared to make lifestyle compromises to benefit the environment and 93% agreeing that everyone has a responsibility to help clean up the environment.
“Sustainability and recycling are very much at the forefront of people’s minds.” said Darren. “At KH Hair, we really wanted to try to play our part. Our hope is that this encourages others within our industry to do the same.”