Nail Tech Talk: My experience as a Green Salon Collective member
By Guest Writer | 01 November 2022 | Feature, Sustainability & the environment, Tech Talk
Lucy Allen, owner of Sheffield-based SuperNatural Nails, a Green Salon Collective member salon, shares what pros need to know about becoming members of the circular waste management authority.
Why did you become a Green Salon Collective member?
I joined Green Salon Collective (GSC) in September 2021 after reading an article about it in Scratch. I’m always looking for ways to reduce waste in my studio. Recycling certain items, such as nitrile gloves and empty glass polish bottles, has been challenging in the past, because these items are considered ‘contaminated waste’. GSC aims to create a circular economy within the hair and beauty industries in the UK and Ireland, by reducing the use of non-recyclable items that would usually end up in landfill and reusing, recycling or repurposing everything else. It’s a unique scheme and the ethos really appealed to me.
What does being a member entail?
Signing up to become a Green Salon Collective member was really easy – it only took a few minutes to register online and buy our starter kit. The education GSC provides is great and the team is constantly looking for ways to improve the scheme. In fact, it’s changed since I first joined and I no longer need to separate all our non-recyclable waste into different bins. The non-recyclable waste we generate in the salon now just goes into one bin, including contaminated items like PPE and food (if you do not compost this).
There’s a great customer service team, plus a helpful member group on Facebook for any queries. SuperNatural Nails is listed on the GSC website as a member salon and in the members area of the site, there are downloadable resources, including images to use on social media to promote being a member and explain the scheme in simple terms.
What are the key benefits of being involved?
SuperNatural Nails can proudly say that it’s a zero-to-landfill salon, which appeals to our target clientele and strongly aligns with our brand ethos. GSC keeps a record of how much waste we’ve returned, which we display on a poster in the studio so that clients can view the impact of the scheme. It’s definitely an eye opener!
How does being a member work financially?
To cover the cost of being a member and the collections, we have added a ‘green fee’ of £1 into our service pricing and explained this to clients via an email and in person. Our clients have been so supportive and are happy to pay a small amount to support our sustainability mission. We promote that we’re GSC members on our website, Instagram and Facebook accounts, and new clients have commented that being a member is one of the reasons they choose to visit us. It’s a win-win situation for both the business and environment.
How can other pros become members?
Visit the Green Salon Collective website for information on becoming a member or if you’re unsure where to start, get in touch with the GSC team, who are very helpful. You can also simply purchase a General Waste to Energy Starter Kit, which includes a bin (or you can use your own), bin bags, marketing materials and a year of weekly waste collections.
Why would you encourage them to do so?
The climate crisis is an issue that affects every single one of us and we should all be doing our bit personally and professionally to reduce waste and our carbon footprint, which is how much carbon dioxide or greenhouse gasses we produce. As an industry, we produce tonnes of waste that can’t be recycled via council recycling services and it unnecessarily ends up in landfill.
By joining Green Salon Collective, you’re keeping waste out of landfill, helping to create clean energy and committing to being a more ethical, sustainable business. Your waste is collected and sent to specialist energy recovery facilities, where it is burned to ash and the emissions released into the air are filtered to levels equal to or below that of standard fossil-fuelled power stations. This creates heat, which is used to heat properties nearby to the facility, and electricity, which is sold back to the national grid – both of which vastly decrease the amount of fossil fuels used and carbon emissions generated. The Collective also offers a carbon-offsetting scheme to go that extra step towards balancing out production of carbon dioxide.