A Salon/SpA Elevating their Sustainability Efforts
We were Green Business of the Week in 2020!
GreenCircle recycling list to keep us organized.
Of course GreenCircle would come up with a solution to all the new PPE waste, and we jumped right in with them.
We compost everything we can at the salon.
UPS comes to take away all our recycling. It's so easy!
This old hair color used to go down the sink, but not any more! We send it away for clean disposal.
Reusable hand towels make a huge impact.
GreenCircle makes it easy to keep recycling separated with their signs. It's second nature at this point.
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What is GreenLoft Initiative? GreenLoft Initiative is Lundquist Hair Design’s ongoing practice of making our hair salon/spa more sustainable, lowering our carbon footprint, and raising awareness. We work to meet those three goals through our GreenCircle certification, salon waste composting, reduction of chemical waste by weighing and recording chemicals, city recycling, using recycled items when possible, our clean air plant project, low or no-ammonia coloring, green hair care, eco-friendly cleaning products when allowed, and awareness raising and fund raising through community outreach and by leading through relationships. Watch Facebook.com/LundquistHairDesign and this site for upcoming opportunities to participate in GreenLoft efforts. As a group, we can make a progressive impact. Awards: November 4, 2020: We won our very first Honorable Mention for our GreenLoft Initiative! We're so proud of this Honorable Mention for Innovation in Solid Waste Reduction & Recycling at the 22nd annual Fort Worth Environmental Excellence Awards. We've been working hard to make a difference since opening in 2012, so this recognition makes us so happy. Events: "Rethinking Waste in Your Salon" March 2, 2020, Kristina Lundquist had the honor of teaching at a workshop while working with City of Fort Worth Material Management Planners, GreenCircle, and another local green salon to help guide salons who want to minimize their waste and become more sustainable. Certifications: GreenCircle Certified Salon May 2017, Lundquist Hair Design became a Green Circle Salon. We went from 3,380 gallons of landfill garbage a year to recycling 98% of our waste, including excess color, cut hair, and foils. That’s amazing! Results: We are continuously reducing our footprint. What raw materials and/or waste (hazardous or non-hazardous) were affected by GreenLoft Initiative? When we opened in 2012, we began recycling materials that the city would accept, but once we became GreenCircle certified in May 2017, we began recycling our left over chemicals including hair color with and without ammonia, lighteners, peroxide developers, and expired styling products. We also started recycling cut hair, foil, aerosol cans, broken styling tools such as hairdryers and irons, all plastics, all metals, and all papers. In our backyard compost, we safely decompose leftover snacks, coffee grounds, and teabags. We also began weighing our hair chemicals in grams and recording each guest’s gram needs for their hair. From that practice, we greatly reduced hazardous chemical liquid waste. Recently, GreenCircle has developed their PPE recovery program, so we now collect all PPE used in the salon including gloves, masks, disinfecting wipes, paper towels, and anything else used for COVID disinfecting or safety. We mail it to their warehouse for environmentally safe burning, and the clean ashes are used to reinforce new building material. Quantity of raw materials used, or waste generated, prior to the project: On average, we threw away a 13 gallon bag of garbage each work day, which was about 3,380 gallons of landfill waste a year before we became GreenCircle Certified, began composting, and quit over mixing hair color. Quantity of raw materials or waste reduced or eliminated: Through GreenCircle, we diverted 525 lbs of waste in 2019 and 275 lbs in 2018. We don’t yet keep track of our compost quantity. We measure our hazardous liquid waste in dollars spent and saved, and we've eliminated on average $150 a week in liquid chemicals used on hair. Current quantity or waste generated/raw materials utilized: Currently, we produce one 13 gallon bag of landfill garbage every week and a half, which is about 450 gallons of waste a year, so we cut our landfill waste from 3,380 gallons to 450 gallons annually when we became GreenCircle certified and made other supporting changes. What waste/raw material was reduced or eliminated? When we became GreenCircle certified in 2017, we began recycling most what had been landfill waste generated from the salon, including all metals, glass, broken electrical hair tools, hair, paper products, soft and hard plastics, vinyl and latex gloves, and hair chemicals. In 2019, when we began weighing and recording our hair chemicals, we eliminated virtually all hazardous liquid chemical waste, and we began composting our lint, coffee, tea, and certain client snacks, eliminating even more landfill waste. What is the (real or estimated) payback period? What are your annual estimated cost savings? There is zero debt attached to our GreenLoft Initiative. We Currently spend about $2,160 a year for our GreenCircle recycling program, which varies by monthly guest count. We spend $67 a month on the GreenCircle PPE Recovery Program during the pandemic. Once we started weighing and recording our hair chemicals in grams, so that we were only mixing exactly what we needed for each guest and eliminating hazardous waste, we began saving an average of $7,800 a year. Considering cost and savings, we are currently saving an average of $4,836 a year through our GreenLoft Initiative! If we had launched our full GreenLoft Initiative all at once, we would have saved the first month; however, this is a continuous work in progress as we learn more and find more ways to lower our carbon footprint, reduce waste, and become more sustainable through our GreenLoft Initiative. Questions are from the City of Fort Worth Environmental Award application. 
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Kristina had the opportunity to present at the Rethinking Waste workshop for salons and spas.
Each year, we proudly hang our sign to show our guests how much waste we've diverted through GreenCircle. It's a group effort!
We choose reusable instead of disposable items at the salon, and we love plants that help purify our air.
Our goal is no liquid waste, but when we have a few grams, we divert it to GreenCircle for proper disposal.
Recycled and bamboo TP and tissue? Yes, please.
It's amazing all the innovative ways cut hair can make a positive impact rather than taking up space in landfills.
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