“Wishcycling”? It doesn’t work.
Putting something in a recycling bin and hoping for the best doesn’t make it recyclable! I should know, I do it all the time (that’s Keith, not Anne). So when this great email landed the other day from the excellent Green Salon Collective, I decided to share it here. (With some tiny edits.)
WISHCYCLING wish·cy·cling noun
The act of putting something into recycling because you hope it can be recycled……rather than knowing it can.
Take the wish out of recycling
BE HONEST…Have you ever done this?
Finished a colour tube. Looked at the recycling bin. Thought: “Surely they’ll recycle that?” That’s wishcycling.
The salon wishcycling list.
These are exactly the kinds of things that can cause confusion in salons.
Used hair foils.Covered in colour and probably not wanted in your standard recycling.
Colour tubes. Metal? Yes. Automatically recyclable through your normal service? Not necessarily.
Cut hair. Natural doesn’t automatically mean your commercial waste provider has somewhere useful to send it.
Compostable towels & capes. Compostable only helps if they’re actually sent into a suitable composting waste stream.
Coffee pods. Mixed materials and leftover coffee can make these tricky for conventional recycling.
Gloves & PPE. Not something you should assume can simply go into mixed plastics.
Contaminated plastics & packaging. Putting the wrong materials into mixed recycling can contaminate the waste stream rather than helping it.
THE PROBLEM
The recycling bin isn’t a magic portal.
Your local council or commercial services can only recycle the materials their collection and sorting system is designed to handle. Items that aren’t accepted can be rejected, treated as contamination or end up joining the general waste stream. And general waste can ultimately be burned for energy or sent to landfill.
The wishcycling journey
1.Finish the colour service. Foils and colour tubes are left behind.
2.Put them in the recycling. Because they’re made from metal, they feel recyclable.
3.Hope for the best. You assume the waste company will sort it out.
4.It gets sent to landfill which generate lots of nasty ammonia, the most potent green house gas.
Because specialist salon waste needs a specialist route.
GOOD NEWS
You don’t have to wish. You can actually know where your salon waste is going. That’s where specialist recycling comes in.
Green Salon Collective was created specifically for the waste that hair salons generate.
Instead of hoping your salon waste can be recycled, you separate it into the correct waste streams and we give it a proper onward route.
AND BEFORE YOU ASK…
No. You don’t need to wash every foil. With Green Salon Collective, used foils and colour tubes don’t have to be spotless before you send them to us. That means less faff for your team, less uncertainty and no throwing specialist salon waste into a general recycling stream and hoping it doesn’t cause contamination.
THE DIFFERENCE:
WISHCYCLING “I think it’s being recycled.”
GSC “I know it’s being recycled.”
Final editor’s note. Other waste management and recycling contractors are available but they don’t send us cool emails.