A Queenstown hair salon’s joined an industry-wide social enterprise aimed at diverting 95% of waste materials from landfills.
Pure Hair Salon, started by Sarah Bergin five years ago, is the first local salon to join Sustainable Salons, which originated in Australia and has since launched in New Zealand.
Her salon now has bins for plastics, metals, hair, paper and glass, and while she’s keeping a landfill bin, ‘‘there’s now so little left to go into it’’.
She says she hounded the organisation to join up, ‘‘’cos it’s just something we believe in’’.
‘‘It’s something I’m passionate about in my own personal life, and then from a business point of view I just think we all can do better.’’
Bergin’s clients are charged a $3 fee on top of their bill, which she says isn’t a big imposition if you’re spending $300 on a colour, cut and blow dry.
The Sustainable Salons website concludes the hairdressing industry generates a lot of
waste.
For example, Aussie salons, it states, send a million kilograms of ‘‘infinitely recyclable’’ aluminium foil to landfills every year, while hair can be stuffed into stockings to make hair
booms, used to clean up coastline oil spills, and ponytails can be turned into wigs.
Currently, her recycling bins are taken out of town but she’s hoping for a local solution once more salons in the Whakatipu sign up.
