The Environmental Impact of Aluminium: Why Recycling Salon Foil Matters

Look around the average hair salon, and you'll probably find aluminium everywhere.

Highlighting foils. Colour tubes. Packaging. Empty product containers.

It's an incredibly useful material. It's lightweight, versatile and, importantly, highly recyclable.

But there's a problem.

Every time salon aluminium is thrown into general waste rather than recycled, we're losing a valuable material that could be kept in circulation.

And when you consider the environmental impact of producing new aluminium, recycling those used salon foils suddenly becomes much more important.

What is the environmental impact of aluminium?

Aluminium doesn't simply appear as the shiny metal we use every day.

Producing virgin aluminium begins with mining bauxite ore. The material then needs to be refined into alumina before an energy intensive smelting process can turn it into aluminium.

That entire process requires significant amounts of energy and natural resources.

It can also have wider environmental consequences associated with mining, land disturbance, waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions.

And yet, sitting in salon bins across the country is aluminium we've already produced.

So why would we throw it away?

Recycling aluminium uses around 5% of the energy needed to make it from raw materials

This is where aluminium gets really interesting.

Recycling aluminium requires only around 5% of the energy needed to produce primary aluminium from raw materials.

In other words, recycling the aluminium we've already got can save around 95% of the energy associated with producing it from virgin materials.

That's an enormous difference.

And unlike many materials, aluminium can be recycled repeatedly without losing its fundamental properties.

That means the foil wrapped around your client's highlights today still has value long after that colour service is finished.

The challenge is making sure it actually gets recycled.

What happens to salon foil after a colour service?

Think about how quickly foil accumulates during an ordinary day in a busy salon.

One client might have dozens of foils in their hair.

Multiply that by several colour clients.

Then multiply it by five or six working days.

Then by 52 weeks.

Suddenly, a material that seems insignificant during an individual appointment becomes a substantial waste stream.

Unfortunately, once those foils are removed from a client's hair, they're often thrown straight into general waste.

From there, depending on your waste provider and local infrastructure, they may be sent for incineration or landfill rather than being recycled.

A valuable resource has effectively become rubbish.

But can't salon foil just go in the normal recycling?

This is where things can get confusing.

You know aluminium is recyclable, so surely used highlighting foils can just go into your council or commercial recycling bin?

Not necessarily.

Salon foils aren't the same as a clean drinks can or piece of household foil.

They're often covered in product residue. Standard recycling services may not accept this type of contaminated aluminium.

Putting salon foils into a general mixed recycling collection without checking whether they're accepted can become an example of wishcycling: hoping something will be recycled rather than knowing it will.

That's why salons need to check specifically whether their waste provider accepts used hairdressing foil, rather than simply asking whether they accept aluminium.

Aluminium shouldn't be single use

One of the most important ideas behind a circular economy is keeping materials in use for as long as possible.

Aluminium is perfect for this.

We have already invested the resources and energy required to extract, refine and manufacture it.

Once a foil has been used for a 45 minute colour service, that material hasn't suddenly lost its value.

The service might be finished. The aluminium isn't.

By separating salon foil from general waste and sending it for specialist recycling, we can help keep that material in circulation.

And it's not just your foils

Hairdressing foil might be the most obvious source of aluminium in a salon, but there's another big one sitting right beside the colour bowl.

Colour tubes.

Those tubes are another valuable source of metal that can easily end up in general waste once the last bit of product has been squeezed out.

Again, the fact that they've contained hair colour can make them difficult to deal with through conventional recycling streams.

At Green Salon Collective, salons can collect their used foils and colour tubes through our specialist recycling service.

Rather than putting valuable aluminium into the bin and hoping for the best, it can be separated and sent into an appropriate recycling stream.

Small foils. Big numbers.

One used highlighting foil doesn't weigh very much.

That's part of the problem.

Throwing a handful into the bin doesn't feel particularly significant.

But salons don't use one foil.

They use hundreds.

Across weeks, months and years, those individual pieces of foil add up to a substantial amount of aluminium.

And when you multiply that across an entire industry, the potential impact becomes much bigger.

It's why the humble salon foil deserves a lot more attention when we talk about making hairdressing more sustainable.

Recycling salon aluminium with Green Salon Collective

Green Salon Collective was created to provide the hairdressing industry with recycling routes for the specialist waste conventional systems can struggle to deal with.

That includes your salon metals.

Used highlighting foils and colour tubes can be separated in the salon, collected and sent for recycling rather than being placed into general waste.

And it's not just aluminium.

Salons recycling with Green Salon Collective can also separate waste streams including:

Hair. Metals. Paper. Plastics. Towels.

It means your salon can move away from treating everything left behind after an appointment as rubbish and start thinking about those materials as resources instead.

What can your salon do?

Start by looking at what happens immediately after a colour service.

Where does the foil go?

Where does the empty colour tube go?

And, crucially, do you know what happens to them next?

If they're going into your standard recycling, ask your provider whether they specifically accept used hairdressing foil and colour tubes containing salon product residue.

If they're going straight into general waste, it's time to ask whether there's a better option.

Because when recycling aluminium can use around 95% less energy than producing it from virgin materials, throwing usable aluminium away simply doesn't make sense.

Your client's colour lasts weeks. Their aluminium could last much longer.

We often talk about sustainability in hairdressing in terms of products, ingredients and packaging.

But sometimes the biggest opportunities are sitting right in front of us.

Or, in this case, underneath the colour bowl.

Every used foil represents a material that has already been mined, processed and manufactured.

It doesn't need to become waste just because the colour service is over.

With specialist salon recycling, those foils and colour tubes can be given another life instead.

So next time you unwrap a client's highlights, don't just see used foil.

See aluminium worth keeping in circulation. ♻️