General News
6 March, 2023
Salon gets savvy with sustainability
Focusing on sustainability, a local salon is combing through its waste management practices to improve environmental out-comes. Maryborough’s Coco Red Hair & Beauty has upgraded its recycling system — from using one big yellow bin to now...
Focusing on sustainability, a local salon is combing through its waste management practices to improve environmental outcomes.
Maryborough’s Coco Red Hair & Beauty has upgraded its recycling system — from using one big yellow bin to now segregating their waste in four distinct ways.
Labelled ‘hair’, ‘plastics’, ‘paper’ and ‘metals’, each bin serves a unique sustainable purpose according to the salon’s owner Caitlyn O’Connell.
“The hair is used to fill stockings to clean up oil spills, paper and metals are recycled and sold, with the proceeds going to OzHarvest to feed homeless people,” she said.
“All our plastic is sold to a company that recycles it to make things like hair combs and dog leads. The profit goes to OzHarvest as well — everything goes to not-for-profits.
“Chemicals as well, after being collected they are processed at chemical recycling plants and turned into recycled water — it saves them from going into our waterways.”
Coco Red Hair & Beauty is a member of Sustainable Salons, an organisation that aims to fix “the salon waste problem” across Australia and New Zealand.
“I realised that there was so much waste coming out of the salon and it just seemed like there was a better purpose for it and I was all for that,” Ms O’Connell said.
“Now it’s been nearly 12 months since we’ve been doing this. For a long time Sustainable Salons wouldn’t service our area because we had no one to pick everything up but it slowly worked out, as soon as I got the email saying they were servicing our area, we signed up.
“It feels really good to be sustainable and it is a shame we couldn’t have done it sooner, especially looking at how much waste we had and how little we have now.”
Ms O’Connell is urging all salon owners and other suitable ventures to sign up with Sustainable Salons to get the most out of their waste.
“I don’t think any other salon around here is doing the same but I think its well worthwhile to do so,” she said.
“Sustainable Salons also service dog groomers because they have a lot of similar waste so they can sign up too.
“The more you learn about recycling and waste management, the better — I’m a huge advocate for it now.”
To learn more about Sustainable Salons visit the website sustainablesalons.org/become-sustainable-salon/