Using hair scraps destined for the trash to help clean up oil spills is just one way a Windsor salon is dyeing itself green.
Salon Cure on Wyandotte St. E is Essex County's first green certified hair salon.
Owner Christine Withington says they would normally fill two Herby Curbys a week with containers, packaging, foil wraps and hair.
"Honestly, just to think about the chemicals going in the water or how there's got to be a better way," she says. "It is so simple. We are a week into our recycling and right now we have half a back of garbage."
Those clumps of hair that are being recycled attract oil and repel water, therefore work great when made into booms to clean-up oil spills in rivers, lakes and oceans.
The salon also no longer dumps leftover chemical hair dye down the drain.
"All of our colour, bleach will be scooped up into a container and then from there will be sent off to Toronto where it will be treated," Withington says. "So it does not get put into our water system."
Salon Cure is charging customers an extra $1 or $2, depending on the service, to help support the new program.
Between 85%-95% of salon waste is diverted by a Toronto-based company called Green Circle Salons. They hope to have the entire salon industry sustainable by 2020.
