Worms chomp through hair
It’s great worm food, it can soak up oil spills and will even repel rabbits from your garden. We’re talking hair. Zibido Hair is leading the no waste movement for Waikato salons, reducing its waste by more than 95 per cent, and that includes all the hair it trims from clients’ heads.
The salon’s monthly waste these days fills about two-thirds of a rubbish bin, a far cry from its previous four full bins a week.
Zibido Hair is now the Waikato ambassador salon for Sustainable Salons, an Australian initiative to reduce salon waste sent to landfill.
The salon has also received funding from Hamilton City Council’s Waste Minimisation Fund to buy sorting bins for plastic and other waste.
Shannon Dowd, 34, who has owned the salon for 12 years, said her interest was piqued by a hair expo in Australia last year.
It’s estimated the average salon generates at least 10 times more waste than a normal household would each week, she said.
‘‘I was one of those ignorant hairdressers.’’
And it’s not just product bottles that can be recycled. All that cut hair is magic for the garden, Dowd said.
It takes about a month to break down and is great for roses, Dowd said.
Worms love it and the lingering human scent keeps rabbits away from vegetable patches.
‘‘Quite a few clients take their hair home for compost. And the bags that they take it home in are reusable as well.’’
Sustainable Salons takes the rest of it and turns it into hair booms, used to soak up oil spills in waterways.
‘‘Hair really soaks up oil. They’re looking at using it in crash sites, from oil spills.’’
A compost bin behind the store means food waste goes to use, too. Leftover fish and chips from a staff get-together made it into the monthly bin. Even Dowd’s candypink hair is coloured with vegan colouring products.
An elaborate hairpiece is being made out of an old red wig for an upcoming competition. Through the initiative, all plastic is recycled and foils – which can be used over and over again – go to scrap metal dealers when finally worn out. Even the plastic from kaput hair straighteners can be turned into a hard material sometimes used for roads. The copper wires inside are sold as scrap metal.
A bucket of chemical waste isn’t chucked out, either. Instead, it’s turned back into water.
‘‘Colour is actually 98 per cent water. So they’ve got this thing and it separates it. We reuse [biodegradable gloves] until we can’t use them again. Everything is reused.’’ The salon charges clients a green fee – usually $1 – which goes straight to Sustainable Salons.
But the extra fee hasn’t hurt business – very few have kicked up a fuss about the extra dollar and the salon has seen an increase in clients, Dowd said.
‘‘[Clients] have no issue with it – they know it’s going somewhere good.’’