Striving for Zero Waste

Salon Vertigo has always been committed to reducing waste and recycling.  Now being the only stylist generating trash, I took it as a personal challenge to push myself to do more to reduce, reuse and recycle.  We have always used old towels in favor of paper towels and napkins, sold cruelty free cosmetics with no extra packaging, use a water cooler to keep the plastic bottles to a minimum and make coffee the old way without succumbing to the plastic waste factory of a Keurig style machine.

Ever since I moved into my new space, I have become as paperless as possible.  I pay bills online from emailed statements, run charges using Square and emailing or texting receipts and using the iPad for all of my business needs including streaming music, managing inventory, placing orders via text and scheduling appointments in the cloud from clients text messages. Clients (for the most part) no longer need appointment cards, as they are putting appointments on their phone calendars.

The OTHER big change is my addition of composting.  It's taken a bit of effort on the clients part-  every time they want to throw something out, they look at me for a hint as to where it should go...
Composting consists of coffee grounds, teabags, food items, compostable food containers and coffee cups/lids, paper towels, degradable packing peanuts and hair. I keep that bin back in the haircutting area.

Recycling is in the dispensary area and now includes my used foils from highlighting, magazines, shipping materials (I take plastic bags and styrofoam to the recycling center), color containers,  glass or metal bottles, plastic carryout containers, etc.  There is so much recycling happening at the salon now,  that it needs to be emptied daily.

Let me know if any of you would like my old magazines for any reason, so they can get one more use before recycling.

With all the new changes, my trash receptacle rarely needs emptying, and THAT'S a good thing!