5 big ways Hairy Jayne is zero waste behind-the-scenes, too
As you know, sustainability and zero waste living is high on the agenda for Hairy Jayne. Yep, we want to make hair care that works a treat, but we also want to make sure that it doesn't cost us the earth on an environmental level by adding to the issues surrounding climate change.
Our handmade hair care range is packaged in the most sustainable way that we can possibly manage. Our customers care a lot about living sustainably and are keen to reduce their plastic footprint by going plastic free wherever possible.
The war on plastic
We've seen some great documentaries coming out in the past few years about climate change and the issues surrounding plastic pollution. From David Attenborough's Blue Planet, to Hugh and Anita's War on Plastic.
These documentaries have been integral in raising awareness around how little plastic is actually being recycled with the current infrastructures in place (something like only 25%). They've highlighted the fact that reducing or reusing plastic is crucial if we're to tackle our current pollution problem.
Off the back of this new awareness, we've managed to reduce plastic in our Hairy Jayne packaging to the bare minimum. We've switched our old plastic bottles over to aluminium or glass, both of which are more readily recyclable.
Our pump and spray attachments are still made from plastic but we do encourage our customers to hold onto them and reuse them when they buy a new 'refill' one with an aluminium lid instead. The refill pouches we use for our shampoos and conditioners are made from a biodegradable plastic that breaks down within 2 years.
A massive improvement on the single use plastic shampoo bottles of old.
Behind-the-scenes in our making space
So our customer-facing ethics are good and visibly we are making a stand about plastic waste. But what goes on behind the scenes when we're making and packing our handmade hair care products at Hairy Jayne headquarters in Bristol?
Being small producers, we inevitably end up with plastic waste in our making process. We are sent a lot of the raw materials we use in single-use plastic packaging to protect the contents. We do try to ask suppliers not to use plastic if they can avoid it, but as we order a lot of liquids we do end up with some.
Thankfully, though, we've come up with ways to make sure none of it is ending up in landfill unnecessarily. Reusing materials wherever possible is our main focus, and if it can't be reused it gets recycled.
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How we're sustainable when we're making your zero waste hair care
1. We try to reuse all of the paper and cardboard packaging that comes to us in deliveries when we pack our online orders. We only ever use paper based packing materials and brown paper tape.
2. Any single use plastic waste that comes in deliveries – ie plastic strapping, bubble wrap, cling film etc – goes in our Reworked mixed plastic recycling box. We post it to ReFactory, they shred it and then create huge plastic boards that are used to make new products, adding it back into the supply chain and closing the loop of plastic waste.
3. The plastic bottles that our ingredients come in are washed out and either reused for our wholesale refillable products (5L jerry cans) or they are reused in our zero waste shop in Bristol called Bloop. At Bloop we have a closed loop bottle return system and supply our local community with refillable cleaning liquids and toiletries (including Hairy Jayne hair care products, of course).
4. For larger deliveries like our wholesale orders, the courier company we use is dpd as they offset their carbon emissions.
5. Our energy supplier is Good Energy. They use 100% renewable electricity and carbon neutral gas.
