recycling Archives - The Salon Movement

Spring is arriving next week and for most of us, it will be welcomed with open arms! It’s the perfect time of year to re-evaluate how eco-friendly you’re being in your life.

Here are a few easy ways you can change to be more eco in your home and work life this Spring:

Decrease Your Water Usage

At both your home and business, there are a lot of things you can do to reduce your water use. If you don’t have low flow toilets or shower heads, get those installed — they’re not as expensive as you may think. Don’t know where to look? We’re big advocates of the products that ECOHEADS offers.

Be mindful of water by only turning it on when it’s time to rinse your hair, teeth or dishes instead of letting it run. Install eco-friendly, water-conserving dishwashers and washing machines and only run full loads. And why not put some old buckets outside to collect rainwater to water your garden and indoor plants?

Reduce Your Energy Use

Switch to energy efficient appliances if possible especially with the ones you use the most. Assess your lighting and heating options, maybe it’s time to go with solar options. If this isn’t in the cards quite yet, there are other small steps you can take which will help. Turn off all lights and machines when they’re not in use, replace your light bulbs with LED or CFL bulbs, and wear a sweatshirt instead of cranking the heat.

Change Your Products

Eco-friendly products can be found everywhere these days. If you’re a DIYer, it can be as simple as mixing baking soda and vinegar to clean most of your surfaces!

Natural beauty products are better than ever, and you know that by supporting sustainable beauty, you’re doing good for your skin and the environment. If your salon isn’t already carrying Davines products, what are you waiting for?

Clear The Clutter

“Spring cleaning” time is here and this year, you’re not only going to give everything a good clean, you’re going to be ruthless in purging everything you don’t need. It may take some time but go through everything at home and at work and donate or recycle what you don’t need. Keeping old paperwork and unnecessary items can weigh us down mentally and emotionally.

Reduce and Recycle

So now that you’ve cleared away all your clutter, you certainly don’t need to add any more back in again. Set up a system that allows you to reduce your waste. Don’t print out emails, stay away from disposable products, and recycle everything you can’t re-use.

Shop Smartly

“Fast fashion”, a term used by fashion retailers to describe inexpensive designs that move quickly from the catwalk to stores to meet new trend, is popular these days. Think the stores that offer you shirts for only a few dollars but will only last you a few months. Clothing is becoming a huge environmental issue in the way it’s manufactured and sold. Instead, look for sustainable fashion when you can and know that you’re doing good for the earth while purchasing a quality piece.

This is the same for towels and sheets you use every day. Spending a little bit more money on Bamboo or other sustainable fabrics will last longer and be kinder to the earth.

Support local markets which carry produce from sustainable, chemical-free farmers. Switch to fair trade items when purchasing coffee, tea and chocolate whenever possible.

Start A Garden

Spring is the perfect time to start a garden even if it’s just a small container garden on your windowsill. Plants have many everyday uses besides looking pretty. In fact, growing plants that naturally purify the air will help you breathe easier. Aloe plants can be useful for small injuries, instead of turning to chemical-based creams to soothe those small burns or cuts.

Growing your own herbs and vegetables is a life changer. You’ll save money plus eating something YOU have grown tastes amazing!

Join The Movement!

If your salon hasn’t already become a part of The Movement, it’s time to make the leap. This will put you ahead of your competitors, and you can rest easy knowing you’re doing what’s best for everyone. Find out more now.

After seeing a Facebook video of a young woman who has been living entirely waste-free for five years, we were inspired to write this post. The small amount of waste she accumulated fit into a small mason jar consisting mostly of receipts, clothing tags, and straws. This small amount of trash pales in comparison to the amount the average Canadian creates everyday. “In 2009, Canada produced 777 kilograms of garbage per citizen. Across 17 countries studied, the average was only 578 kg produced.” Even for those of us who religiously recycle and try to reduce waste as much as possible, that kind of lifestyle is still seen as the holy grail. Although incredibly difficult in some aspects, the ethics and value behind it are inspiring. The first question you may have is what exactly is a waste-free lifestyle? It’s a green movement aimed at sending nothing to a landfill. It relies upon the “R’s,” – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Reducing what we need, reusing as much as possible, recycling when needed, and composting everything else. Landfills are a huge current problem that most people tend to forget about or overlook. It’s easy for most of us to avoid the truth and turn a blind eye because finding a solution requires effort. Most of us know that producing a ton of garbage is bad for the environment but just how bad is unknown to most of us. By living in a disposable society, the landfills we contribute to are very toxic by nature. “They produce tons of greenhouse gases, are not aerated for proper decomposition of natural materials which then release high levels of methane, unnatural chemicals leach into the soil which can run off into the ocean, groundwater, and soil.”

Plastic is especially dangerous to the ocean, marine life, and our health. It will never actually disappear completely and is filled with toxic substances. The root of this issue lies in the number of products sold to us that are completely unnecessary. You don’t NEED a separate brush, sponge, soap, spray for every tiny separate thing. A great example of this is using natural cleaning products such as vinegar or castile soap for many household chores. You might be thinking but I recycle all the time, how is this different than being waste-free? Recycling is awesome but in reality, most things aren’t fully recyclable. Due to difficulty in separating raw materials, lots of recycled goods end up being discarded anyway.

Taking small steps to reduce your footprint is an excellent start that can benefit the environment and your own life. Contact us for more questions about a waste-free lifestyle and how you can get started recycling in more areas of your life. → http://thesalonmovement.com/.

Spring Into Sustainability!

Zero-Waste Lifestyle