Wishcycling in Salons: Are You Really Recycling Your Salon Waste?

You finish a colour service, gather up the used foils and pop them into the recycling bin.

It feels like the right thing to do. Aluminium is recyclable, after all.

But will those foils actually be recycled?

In many cases, the answer is no.

Welcome to wishcycling: putting something into a recycling bin because you hope or assume it can be recycled, rather than knowing that the recycling service you're using can actually process it.

And in a busy hair salon, it's surprisingly easy to do.

What is wishcycling?

Wishcycling happens when we put an item into a recycling stream in the hope that it will be recycled, even though it isn't accepted by that particular recycling service.

It's usually done with the best intentions.

You see a material that you know can technically be recycled, so naturally it goes into the recycling bin.

The problem is that "recyclable" doesn't necessarily mean "recycled".

Different council and commercial recycling services accept different materials. An item may be technically recyclable, but if the facility receiving your waste isn't equipped to sort, clean or process it, it may still end up being rejected.

Worse still, incorrect items can contaminate recycling loads and make it more difficult for other materials to be successfully recovered.

What does wishcycling look like in a hair salon?

Hair salons use a surprisingly wide range of materials every single day, and many of them aren't suitable for standard mixed recycling collections.

Take hairdressing foils as an example.

Aluminium is incredibly recyclable. However, putting it into your council or standard commercial mixed recycling doesn't guarantee that it will be recycled.

The same problem can apply to other salon waste, including:

• Used hairdressing foils
• Colour tubes
• Cut hair
• Compostable salon towels
• Compostable capes
• Coffee pods
• Contaminated plastic packaging
• Gloves
• Other materials contaminated with salon products

Putting these items into a recycling bin doesn't automatically make them recyclable within that particular waste system.

But aluminium is recyclable… isn't it?

Absolutely.

That's what makes wishcycling particularly frustrating.

Aluminium is a valuable material that can be recycled again and again, and recycling aluminium requires dramatically less energy than producing aluminium from virgin raw materials.

The issue isn't whether aluminium can be recycled.

It's whether the recycling system you're putting it into is actually designed to accept used salon aluminium.

Your salon might diligently separate its foils every day, but if your council or commercial recycling provider doesn't accept contaminated salon foil, your good intentions aren't necessarily translating into recycling.

Can wishcycling contaminate your recycling?

It can.

Recycling facilities are designed around specific streams of accepted materials. Adding unaccepted items can contaminate those streams.

This can result in materials being rejected during sorting and, depending on the recycling system and level of contamination, potentially lead to a larger quantity of material being diverted away from recycling.

So when in doubt, putting something into the recycling bin isn't necessarily the most sustainable option.

The better approach is to know exactly what your waste provider accepts and what happens to those materials after collection.

Hair is another common example

Hair is natural. It biodegrades. Surely it can just go into general waste?

It can, but that doesn't mean it's the best use for it.

Cut hair is actually an incredibly useful resource.

At Green Salon Collective, we work to keep salon hair in circulation and find new uses for it rather than treating it simply as waste.

Hair collected through our recycling system can be used across 15+ different applications, including hair booms and mats for oil spill clean-ups, composting, research, soil improvement and the development of new materials.

Suddenly, that pile of hair swept up after a haircut doesn't look quite so much like rubbish.

What about colour tubes?

Colour tubes are another great example of why specialist salon recycling matters.

They're made from valuable materials, but they're also a very salon-specific waste stream.

Rather than assuming they'll be processed through a standard mixed recycling collection, salons can separate their used colour tubes and send them through a recycling system designed specifically with professional hairdressing waste in mind.

The same principle applies to your foils.

Instead of hoping they're recycled, you can make sure they're going into a recycling stream that actually accepts them.

Stop wishing. Start knowing.

That's the big difference between putting salon waste into a general recycling bin and using a specialist recycling service.

With Green Salon Collective, there's no wishcycling involved.

We provide salons, barbers and freelance hair professionals with dedicated recycling solutions for the waste streams created by our industry.

Depending on your recycling service, you can separate materials including:

Hair. Foils. Colour tubes. Towels. Paper. Plastics.

Rather than asking your standard recycling system to deal with highly specific salon waste, those materials enter dedicated waste streams designed to give them a better next life.

What can Green Salon Collective recycle?

Green Salon Collective was created specifically to tackle waste from the hair and beauty industry.

We can help salons recycle materials that are often difficult to deal with through conventional waste services, including:

Hair

Cut hair can be collected and put to use in projects ranging from oil spill clean-ups to composting, research and new materials.

Hairdressing foils

Used aluminium foil can be collected through our specialist recycling system rather than being placed into general waste or wishcycled through a standard mixed recycling bin.

Colour tubes

Used colour tubes can be separated alongside your salon metals so the valuable material isn't simply thrown away.

Towels

We provide composting solutions for suitable disposable salon towels, helping salons think beyond the general waste bin.

Paper and plastics

Salons can also separate additional waste streams through Green Salon Collective, reducing the amount of potentially useful material being treated as general waste.

How do I know if my salon is wishcycling?

Take five minutes to look inside your salon's recycling bin.

Then ask yourself:

Do I actually know that my waste provider accepts every one of these items?

Not whether the packaging says it's recyclable.

Not whether you've heard that the material can be recycled.

Not whether it feels like it should go in there.

Do you know that your specific recycling provider accepts it and has a route for processing it?

If you're unsure, check with them.

You might be surprised by the answer.

Make Recycle Week the week you stop wishcycling

Recycling shouldn't be based on hope.

As an industry, we use huge quantities of valuable materials every day. From aluminium foil and colour tubes to cut hair, there's an opportunity to rethink what we call "waste".

The first step is understanding what's actually happening to it.

So this Recycle Week, take a look at your salon bins.

What are you recycling?

What are you throwing away?

And, most importantly…

What are you wishcycling?

With Green Salon Collective, you don't have to cross your fingers and hope your salon waste gets recycled.

You can actually recycle it.

No wishing. Just doing. ♻️