Belgium: Recycled Hair To Protect The Environment
“I find it a shame that hair is now simply thrown in the trash, when I know that we could do so many things with it”
Across Belgium, hairdressers are sweeping hair on the floor that they have just cut and putting it in bags which they donate to an NGO which recycles it to protect the environment. The Hair Recycle project fed strands of hair into a machine that turns them into a kind of tangled square that can be used to soak up petroleum and other hydrocarbons polluting the environment, or made into bio-composite bags.
Patrick Janssen, co-founder of the project, explains that a kilo of hair can absorb 7 to 8 liters of oil and hydrocarbons and that the mats can be placed in the pipes to absorb water pollution before it spreads. reach a river. “Our products are all the more ethical because they are produced locally… they are not imported from the other side of the planet,” he told Reuters. “They are made here to deal with local issues.”
The project indicates on its website that hair has powerful properties: a strand can support up to 10 million times its own weight, and in addition to absorbing fats and hydrocarbons, they are water-soluble and very elastic thanks to their keratin fibers. Isabelle Voulkidis, manager of the Helyode salon in Brussels, is one of dozens of hairdressers across the country who donate a small sum to the project. “What motivates me, personally, is that I find it unfortunate that hair is now simply thrown in the trash, when I know that we could do so many things with it,” she said, while cutting the hair of one of his clients.