Saskatoon hair salon recycles waste beauty products

Saskatoon's Revamp Salon Company is recycling hair products, foils, clippings, and chemical waste that were formerly washed down the sink or bound for the landfill.

Revamp is one of almost 600 salons across Canada that are certified by Green Circle Salons, an organization that promotes sustainability in the beauty industry.

For owner Celene Dupuis, it's all about doing her part to create a better future for the planet.

"I have a four-year-old and I want a clean earth that he can live on. I just want our future to be a little bit brighter," she said.

"It's definitely a lot of work, but I find that it does create so much waste when you get your hair done, so I felt like it was the responsible thing to do." 

The staff at Revamp sort their waste into five categories: metals, hair, plastic and papers, hair products, and garbage. All but the latter are recyclable by Green Circle. The waste is picked up by a delivery service and transported to various locations to be processed. Product tubes and hair foils are cleaned and reused through the program.

Less waste

Dupuis told CBC News the salon is seeing a difference in how much goes to the landfill.

"The salon I worked at before we would have a big garbage bag every night of trash. Here we're finding we take out our garbage once a week, and that's it," she said.

Revamp is the only Saskatoon salon that's Green Circle certified. She hopes other salons will start recycling their waste as well.

"With how much waste that we're able to reduce as one salon, if everybody got involved with it, I think our industry in general could make a huge difference in the amount of waste we put back in the environment," she said.

Dupuis says the salon charges $1.50 on every bill to keep the salon environmentally-friendly. Of that, $1 goes to Green Circle to manage the program. The salon keeps $0.50 for ongoing green initiatives.

The salon hopes to establish an aerosol can recycling depot where for every five cans a customer brings in to have recycled, they will get a discount off their next purchase.

Dupuis also hopes to carry a vegan hair product line called EVO by the Spring.