Hair salons initiate aluminium foil recycling program

Frasca, a hairdresser, and co-founder Ewelina Forocko, who holds qualifications in environmental science, first carried out a study of salon waste that showed aluminium foil comprised about 50 per cent of waste.

This led to an initiative called Refoil, which was launched three years ago to support salons in directing foil products to recycling, with 150 salons around the country participating to date.

Frasca said the initiative was saving about 1.7 tonnes of aluminium from going to landfill a year. If every salon in Australia started recycling its foil, it could be as much as 1000 tonnes of aluminium a year being recovered.

“Aluminium is one of the worst metals environmentally to produce from raw materials, but it is infinitely sustainable to recycle,” Frasca says.

The proceeds from on-selling used foil and plastics to recyclers are being used to support OzHarvest, with one roll of Refoil equalling about five meals for homeless persons. The recycling process, which involves smelting waste foil and aluminium tubes at 1200 degrees centigrade, results in any chemical or plastic residues separating out from the metal.

The success of Refoil formed the basis for the new Sustainable Salons initiative.

Since SSA officially launched, 20 salons have already signed up to the program with 80 more applications in progress.

The cost to the salon is based on the average number of customers a week and number of waste streams, and works out to be about $1.82 per customer if the full 95 per cent of waste is being collected and recycled.