Infinity Hair – Lane Cove’s First Sustainable Hair Salon

On a recent visit to Infinity Hair in Lane Cove West, ITC noted that the staff were in a flutter about some new bins. At first, we paid no attention to the Infinity girl’s chatter about “that bin is for the foil”, “ONLY hair goes in that bin over there” etc. After all, we were there for some hair-pampering, not to concern ourselves with salon housekeeping.

But then we spotted this sitting on the bench in front of us – from Sustainable Salons Australia – and we started paying a bit more attention. Infinity Hair are Lane Cove’s first Sustainable Hair Salon.

Sustainable Salons is “a comprehensive resource recovery service designed for the salon environment that rewards the salon and gives back to the community.” They are “turning salon waste into valuable resources while giving back to the community. #WeGiveaCrop”

The salon industry itself creates a lot of waste that needs to be diverted from landfills and it can be done if waste, such as chopped hair is considered as a resource not just trash. And you’ll never believe that they do with all that chopped hair – they use it to make HAIR BOOMS!

Basically, hair clippings are stuffed into massive nylon stockings, and become Hair Booms. These booms are used to help soak up oil spills in our seas and oceans. It turns out that hair is brilliant at soaking up oil, so these booms will serve as a chemical-free sponge and barrier, to prevent further contamination.

What is the deal with hair booms? They are actually a powerful combination of two aspects that each play a role on its own, but only together give amazing results. Hair is a type of a natural sorbent, which means it can adsorb oil, removing it from the environment. On the other hand, booms are barriers that are designed to contain already spilled oil and prevent it from spreading further. Therefore, this combination achieves soaking in and containment of the oil spilled, killing two birds with one stone

Sustainable Salons are currently preparing a stockpile of these hairy sponges to send to the Great Barrier Reef, in case there is an oil spill in the future.

*The hair does not ‘soak up’ the oil, but rather the oil coats each individual strand of hair.

*A single hair boom is able to clean up to 4 litres of oil.

*Over half a million kg of hair was used to clean up (40 million litres of oil) in the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Sustainable Salons collect up to 95% of your Salon Waste. Read more about their work here.

Well done Infinity Hair for joining the local War on Waste. They are following in the steps of local heroes, the Lane Cove Sustainability Action Group, who are fighting the War on Waste locally, and beyond.

Infinity Hair is located a the Figtree Shops in Lane Cove West. You can find out more about the shops here. Get your hair done, have a beauty treatment, grab a cuppa and buy award winning meat or fruit and veggies.

Address: Figtree Plaza Shop 5, 225 Burns Bay Road, Lane Cove West NSW 2066
Phone: 02 9418 7817
Website: Infinity Hair
Facebook: Infinity Hair

Infinity Hair are one of ITC’s fabulous Platinum Sponsors. Without their support our website would never have been possible. #itcplatinumsponsor

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