Salons and freelancers, this new recycling scheme is for you

With the support of several key industry partners, a new national recycling scheme is now available for salons and freelance hairdressers. The ‘Recycle My Salon’ scheme has launched with the aim to reduce the amount of aluminium colour tubes, foils, aerosols, and cans going to landfills.

'Recycle My Salon'

The scheme is run on a not-for-profit basis in association with the HBSA (Hairdressing and Beauty Suppliers Association). Used aluminium products are collected in recycling bins in the salon which, once full, are collected from our recycling partner. The products are sorted, baled, and recycled. All used chemical residues are stripped from the aluminium so it can be usefully used for something else.

How to get involved

Recycling packs of five bins, one lid and 25 recycled sacks are available from wholesalers or directly from the Recycle My Salon website. The bins are easy to assemble, and everything is made from 100% recyclable materials. Our recycling partner First Mile will pick up a full bin of used products from any UK postcode.

And why you should

Aluminium is strong, durable, and easy to mould into all sorts of different shapes and it is also extremely easy to recycle. Aluminium can be recycled repeatedly because it can be melted and then reformed without losing any of its original properties. When you recycle aluminium, the recycling and new production process save 95% of the energy used to make the original metal, it also saves 95% of the greenhouse gas emissions produced.

Once collected and sorted, bales of aluminium packaging are taken to a reprocessing plant, where they go through four stages – shredding, de-coating, melting and casting. During the final stage, the molten aluminium is cast into large ingots weighing 20+ tonnes.

We're all in this together

Mike Patey, general manager of Recycle My Salon said: "This initiative is truly an industry-led scheme. HBSA member companies came together with the common goal to try and reduce the amount of used hair and beauty products being sent to landfills. We have started the Recycle My Salon scheme with used aluminium and would like to include further waste streams in the future once the concept is proven."

"We have purposely kept the price point as low as possible to make the process affordable for salons and we are running the scheme in a similar way to a not-for-profit company.

We would welcome the support of additional wholesalers and colour manufacturers who would like to become involved. It will take the whole community to come together to tackle the environmental challenges we face."

For further information on the scheme please visit their website.