Take a look around your salon or clinic and there’s a good chance you’ll quickly realise the amount of plastic you’re surrounded by. From product bottles, to sterile bags, packaging and the like, the amount of plastic that ends up as landfill is huge.
Sustainability has become a bit of a buzz-word of late, and we all know we should be making more of an effort, but where to start?
That’s where Sustainable Salons comes in. Co-founded by Ewelina Soroko and Paul Frasca, Sustainable Salons works with independent salons and clinics to collect all plastics and turn them into…something else.
“I have always liked the cradle to cradle philosophy, that in nature there is no wastage,” Ewelina explains. “I think if we start thinking like that, then the world will be a better place.”
It was this belief that led to Ewelina and Paul to create The Shampoo Collection, whereby they partnered with hipster glasses brand Dresden Vision to turn salon waste into glasses frames.
“When you walk into a salon, you see all types of plastic, from shampoo, to water bottles, peroxide bottles. You name it, it’s probably made from plastic,” Paul says. “Clients are becoming more and more eco-conscious and importantly, sustainably minded. Consumers are not only caring about the planet, but the communities around them. So the connection between Sustainable Salons and Dresden was a natural one.”
At its core, Sustainable Salons is a recycling programme. “It’s for the hair and beauty industry,” Ewelina explains. “Everything that we collect, we find a repurposing solution for and 100% of the proceeds collected from our recycling are donated to charitable causes.”
It’s not always easy to be environmentally conscious when it comes to our salon waste. We use the products we like and that our clients enjoy. And yet often, those products are packaged in excessive plastics. Since launch, Sustainable Salons has collected 125,000 kilograms of plastics across the country, and becoming a sustainable salon is as easy as signing up with Ewelina and Paul’s environment-saving brainchild.
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