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Ontario company allowing salons to dispose of waste more efficiently

Amanda Benincasa’s business is beauty, and now her work beautifying people is keeping the environment beautiful too.
Shane-Price-and-staff-with-one-of-their-trucks
Shane Price and staff with one of the waste vehicles.

Amanda Benincasa’s business is beauty, and now her work beautifying people is keeping the environment beautiful too.

The owner of Evoke Salon and Spa — located in Thunder Bay — opened her doors three years ago, and was dismayed by the waste disposal options available to salons.

“As an owner, I started to become acutely aware of how much waste we were producing,” said Benincasa. “When you’re an employee you don’t see how much waste is going out, and when I saw that, I thought there must be another way.”

There was another way, and Benincasa found out about it through one of the reps from the Davines natural hair products she carries.

They introduced her to Green Circle Salons, a Toronto-based organization that provides sustainable waste management and recycling for salons and spas across North America.

Their mandate: to make the beauty industry sustainable by 2020.

Evoke has been a member of Green Circle Salons for a year now, and were recently recognized by the organization for the their commitment to sustainability. In their first nine months, they redirected around 75 per cent of their waste, totaling 459 pounds, that would otherwise have gone straight to regular landfills, or down the drain.

The program allows Evoke to recycle items like colour tubes, aerosol cans, and it accepts excess hair chemicals to divert them from being rinsed down the drain. They even repurpose hair cuttings and use them in booms — mats used in oil spill cleanups.

Shane Price, the CEO and founder of Green Circle Salons, came to his own environmental epiphany in much the same way as Benincasa, but from sitting in the chair, not behind it.

“I noticed all the salon waste going into a black garbage bag, and I asked the owner if there wasn’t something better they could do,” said Price. “He said no, the city of Toronto doesn’t take x-y-z.”

Price set out to remedy that, launching the program in Toronto in 2009.

By 2012, Green Circle Salons had launched in British Columbia, made it to Alberta, Quebec and the Maritimes in 2013, and in 2014 headed south to Chicago and Seattle. Major cities can access Green Circle Salon trucks that pick up their materials, but smaller communities like the 50-some operating in Northern Ontario use a “hair mail” service in which a third party ships the waste to the nearest facility.

Evoke Salon is one of two in Thunder Bay using the service, but Benincasa said she thinks more salons are going to be signing up soon.

“It’s very popular in southern Ontario. It’s just starting to make it’s way up here,”said Benincasa. “I’ve had a few people since this has come to light contact me that are interested and ask me questions about the program.”

Benincasa added about $1.50 per head to cover the cost of the service, part of which goes towards the logistical fees involved, while the rest goes towards green upgrades for the businesses, like LED lighting or hot water on demand.

Benincasa said the costs are worth it environmentally, and even more so from a marketing perspective.

“We have a lot of green-minded customers and they’ve been very enthusiastic about us joining this program,” said Benincasa. “We want to make our clients feel beautiful and good, and if they can feel good about coming to Evoke Salon because of our decreased footprint then that’s fantastic.”