Can Salon Metals be Recycled?
With Green Salon Collective the answer is: YES!
Before Green Salon Collective started in the UK, research showed that UK hairdressers recycle ONLY 1% of their foil...that number has now doubled thanks to so many amazing salons recycling. However that's still 98% of salons sending metals to landfill!
We want to ensure that salons are aware of their metals' recyclability and the impact it can have, not only in reducing their environmental footprint but also in reducing the need for newly mined aluminium.
What can be recycled, and how?
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Hairdressing Foil
Foil goes through a re-melt process which turns it into molten metal. This removes any coatings and residual hair dye. Metal yield is about 70% and the molten aluminum formed into large blocks called ingots. Ingots are sent to mills, rolled out and made back into new Aluminum products.
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Colour Tubes
Tubes pass through a similar process as foil, but at a specialist recycler who can deal with the higher contamination levels, like left-on plastic caps. Yield is lower at an estimated 50%.
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Product Cans
Aerosols are explosive and so are taken to specialist recyclers where they are first shredded in an explosive proof shredder to liberate gas before being recycled.
Cans are re-melted to remove coatings and inks ad the metal is then made into large blocks called ingots. Each ingot contains about 1.6 million cans.
