Dundee green hairdresser Charlie Taylor is following in her mum’s footsteps by recycling everything she can – even the hair swept from her salon floor.
“My old mum used to say there’s a right way or wrong way to do everything, and it’s just as easy to do it the right way.”
This Dundee hairdresser believes she is doing things “the right way”.
Charlie is one of the 12 hairdressing salons in Courier Country that is part of an initiative known as the Green Salon Collective (GSC).
These salons recycle all the hair they snip off their clients’ locks.
That hair then goes on to get reused in a number of inventive ways – including hair booms.
These are huge stockings stuffed of recycled hair that are used to clean up oil spills.
Dundee green hairdresser Charlie on hair recycling journey
Charlie said her green mindset came from her “thrifty” mum.
“I’m not an eco-warrior, but my mother was,” she said.
“She was the original eco-warrior before it became a thing.”
Charlie’s mum, Catherine Poller was born in 1920. She brought her daughter up to be “very eco-aware.”
“That was very unusual for her generation,” she said.
“There was absolutely no wastage. She lived through the war, rationing and hard times.
“If there was a way to recycle it or reuse it, she would do it. It’s a very Scottish thing, isn’t it? She was thrifty.
“I was brought up that way so it’s important to me.”
“I think it’s common sense,” Charlie continued, “if you can recycle it, why wouldn’t you?
“It’s just as easy to recycle your hair as it is to sweep it up and put it in the bin and never see it again.
“But if there is a purpose for the hair that we cut then I think we should be using it.”
Charlie came across the Green Salon Collective in 2020 when the world stood still.
“This was a project of mine during lockdown,” she said.
With some time on her hands, she began to think about the environment.
“I started thinking down the route of how can we improve our carbon footprint and then I discovered Green Salon Collective – I joined up there and then.
“We’ve been running hair salons for 40 years and I’ve watched a lot of hair go into the bin.
“All these years I’ve always thought, what can we do with the hair?
“It always seemed like such a waste. Until now.”
So how does hair in Dundee become ‘hair booms’ for cleaning up oil spills?
The process itself is pretty simple.
“As a business,” Charlie explained, “we recycle as much as we can with the council, but that is limited.
“Green Salon Collective allows us to collect all the hair that we cut no matter what state it is in.”
That includes hair coloured by dyes and wet hair.
“We pack it up, it goes into a box.”
The bags are then collected by waste management group Hubba and GSC make it into those hair booms.
“Picture a stocking, but with hair stuffed inside it. Because hair doesn’t absorb water, but it does absorb oil, they put it into oceans and waterways to clean up oil spills.”
As well as helping with waterway clean-ups, the recycled hair can be used in a number of ways, including in composting and gardening.
“One of our taglines is ‘your hair can grow food’,” Charlie added.
The hair can also be turned into hair mats to cover storm drains, be used as wool alternatives and even hair rope.
Hair salons like Charlie’s can also send away their contaminated tint tubes, which the council would not be able to recycle.
How much does it cost to be a green hairdresser in Dundee?
The GSC boxes Charlie fills up with hair are priced at £175 each. Charlie goes through three of these a month over her Dundee and Perth salons.
So she is forking out £525 a month to make sure she is doing her bit for the planet.
“It’s costing me money to be green,” said Charlie, but for her it’s worth it.
“I personally think that every hair salon should have to do it.”
Charlie charges a £1 green fee to help towards the recycling cost.
She continued: “Nobody ever complains about it. I think people really appreciate that we are a green salon.
“We’re not perfect, but we do try. It’s hard to be perfect when we’re really busy.
“But we’re trying and that’s what’s important.”
Fry Taylor, who you saw above with the hair boom in hand is a general manager at GSC. He joined the group three years ago and said his alternative title is “chief trash talker”.
For Fry and GSC, the hair recycling allows for a change in the conversations in a hair salon.
“It’s time to shift our perspective on cut hair from waste to valuable resource. Discarding something that can be repurposed or recycled is simply not ethical,” he said.
“By utilizing hair in our ten different ways, not only can we reduce the methane emissions released from hair in landfills, but we can also inspire innovative conversations between stylists and clients.
“Say goodbye to mundane small talk about holidays and hello to exciting, eco-friendly possibilities.”
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