From the time I opened my first salon, I always believed it was so important to be mindful of the chemicals and waste that was created from operating a beauty salon. Things like recycling and product conservation were standard policy for us. But years later, I came across this incredible initiative that is making a major impact in our industry, called Green Circle Salons.
What is the Green Circle Salons Initiative?
The Green Circle Salon initiative encourages Salon & Spas to reduce and reuse their by-products, metals & plastics, and turn them into environment-friendly items. It has made beauty professionals more mindful of our surroundings. Salons will have a separate box where they put wastes like plastics, hair clips, etc. Then, a trusted Green Circle partner will arrive and take the waste for recycling and reusing.
Background
Since the industrial revolution, we have seen serious adverse effects of industrial wastes, plastics bags, and different emissions of gases that impact our environment. Global warming has been involved prodigiously in our ecosystem causing serious problems all over the world. Increasing temperatures and melting glaciers have directly impacted nations in the form of uncontrollable floods, fires etc. Many industries are still contributing to this waste, seriously disturbing the natural eco-system.
Plastic has been the major contributor to environmental degradation all across the globe. Because of its non-biodegradable character, it pollutes and damages the environment brutally. Many initiatives have been taken by global leaders to somehow reduce the impact of such products on the overall environment. One of these initiatives is the Green Circle Salon initiative.
Introduction
Initiated by the beauty enhancement leader back in 2009, Shane Price, started noticing the waste problems of salons firsthand. The amount of waste potentially coming out of the global market is contributing hugely to the adverse impacts on climate. Shane Price launched the global sustainable movement for the first time in 2009. The idea was to provide guidance to beauty salons and make them aware of their social and moral responsibility regarding waste management.
Objective
The main objective of the movement is to educate and help spas and salons to reduce their waste and reuse almost 95% of the waste for beneficial environment-friendly purposes. They help local salons around the globe, ensure they reduce their eco-impact by reusing and recycling wastes like by-products and even hair.
Hair Clippings
The beauty industry contributes 877lbs of waste around the globe in 1 minute. This waste contains heaps and heaps of hair clippings that have a lot of encouraging environment-friendly applications if treated the right way. Studies have shown that hair booms that are made by these wasted hair clippings are of excellent use for oil spillage incidents. Hair booms are capsule-based cylinders that are very useful replacements of synthetic booms. Hair booms have the ability to absorb oil naturally and repelling water. In doing so many big contaminations can be avoided and aquatic life can be saved from the tragic and adverse complications of oil spillage.
This excellent service to the world is being provided because of the Green Circle Salons initiative. You might not know but a big player in methane emissions throughout the U.S. is your hair, almost 18% emissions, which is a big chunk of the overall score. Green Circle Salons initiative has contributed a great deal in lowering this number.
Plastics
The plastics industry and products have been one of the leading evils for the environment and climate degradation. Nothing has inflicted more damage to the environment than plastic materials and its products. The extensive use of plastic has rendered our irrigation systems and landfills ineffective. It has also contributed to many life-threatening conditions in humans and other living organisms.
Plastics may have desirable applications but the negative effects of it on the environment and human health proves to be very costly. Plastics have agents that not only prove toxic but are also leading causes of cancer around the world. Humans face adverse effects of plastic throughout their different stages of the life cycle. Starting from manufacturing by-products being thrown to the water streams, through to the consumers, and eventually the disposal.
Green Circle Salons treat the plastic in such a way to use it for the automobile industry and other useful purposes. Instead of disposing of it in the open environment resulting in detrimental causes, Green Circle Salons showcase a sense of responsibility towards society.
Beauty Products and Chemicals
All beauty salons use beauty products to help clients have glowing skin, lively hair, and a younger look. In doing so, every salon accumulates a considerable amount of wastes that when introduced into the water streams can prove to be detrimental in multiple ways. For this matter, Green Circle Salons educate businesses about certain products and not to dispose of them in the local garbage mix. They treat the products separately and use certain enzymes to treat them and break them down when required.
Becoming a Part of the Movement
Now let us see how to become the active part of this sustainable movement for environment-friendly ways. You can join this movement and become part of the family of more than 16000+ soldiers working for the betterment of the new generations under the banner of Green Circle Salon.
Convey your Customers the Narrative
Once you are part of the sustainable program movement, you will be provided with marketing materials so that you can spread the word and make your customers a part of this beautiful gesture. There are a growing number of ongoing campaigns and policies to reduce our use of plastic. More and more consumers are adopting lifestyle changes and adopting a more sustainable lifestyle.
Nature is the greatest teacher. It’s important to preserve the inherent wisdom of the natural world for all future generations.
You will start accumulating waste within the guidelines that Green Circle Salons teaches you. It includes hair clips, foils, wasted products, plastics, etc. This garbage will be picked by the relevant department representative’s daily.
Once the waste of your salon is handed over to the recycling unit it will recycle the otherwise wasted material into useful environment-friendly products that can contribute to the betterment of the society as a whole.
What does it mean to be a part of the movement?
A salon that is part of the Green Circle Salon movement is an accredited and certified part of the sustainability program. It uses the waste diversion and conversion methods of Green Circle Salon. More than 700 beauty salons have been accredited and certified in the past five years.
Benefits for the Beauty Salon Business
There are certain benefits of joining the Green Circle Salon Initiative for businesses including: Client Growth, New Revenue Streams & Saving Money. We also focus on these types of opportunities (both client acquisition and profitability) within our Salon Cadence community. Here is an article on building wealth in your salon.
According to a study, almost 84% of clients prefer salons that are eco-friendly. By this, you can increase your own clients and also contribute to saving people and the planet. Such environment sustainability programs increase revenue and also encourage financial stability through new forms of revenue streams. By investing additional revenue, you can contribute to environment-friendly cutting-edge technology that can lead to power savings, reduced costs, and other monetary benefits in your beauty business. All these advantages save money.
How does It all work?
When you enroll and become part of the initiative, the first delivery you get is 4 boxes of cardboard and a plastic bin. Each cardboard box is used to dispose of one of the waste materials among plastics, metals, hair clips, and paper. The plastic bin is used for the leftover products that are otherwise drained down the landfills and contribute to environmental degradation. The capacity of the whole bin is about 4-liters. Whenever the capacity is reached the staff calls the Green Circle Salon team and the waste is transported to the nearest warehouse.
The waste is used to make different environment-friendly products and also certain wastes are incinerated at high temperatures to contribute to energy production.
Where does the waste end up?
Green Circle Salon works alongside 40 like-minded companies that work in tandem to achieve all the successful functions of the program. From treating wastes to composite plastic manufacturers, all work in harmony to achieve the greater goal.
Contribution of Green Circle Salon
One of the biggest achievements of Green Circle Salon is the rapid spread of awareness it has struck throughout the industry. Its growth is unparalleled and far-reaching. The outcome of this initiative has taken salon and spas by surprise. Thousands of beauty-related businesses have moved on with the old-fashioned way of disposing of waste. It has become a sort of trend to grab the membership and contribute.
The rate at which beauty salons are becoming a part of this initiative is very promising. According to the official site, Green Circle Salon has registered 700+ businesses in the past 5 years. The organization is always looking for more beauty salons ready to take action and do their part towards saving the environment.
Conclusion
With all of the above discussion, it is no surprise that Green Circle Salons environment-friendly initiative has been highly recognized globally in a short span of time. It has achieved unmatched milestones for climate sustainability. According to its official website last year, Green Circle Salons diverted 1,713,476 pounds of garbage. This is a feat which has to be appreciated and efforts should be made to increase its impact as much as possible.
To get started, contact them directly at https://greencirclesalons.com/.