REFOIL: reusing aluminum in the hairdressing industry

When coloring our hair, aluminum foil speeds up the chemical reactions by trapping the heat. A faster process means less damage for the hair. On the other hand, foil production requires excessive amount of energy and water, and once in the landfill, it takes centuries to degrade, which obviously does not contribute to the health of our planet. Fortunately, in Australia, there is a solution!

In our Winter 2015/2016 issue we introduced you to Refoil – the first sustainable foiling industry from Australia. Refoil is rethinking hairdressing techniques and tools by implementing a new life cycle approach with three easy steps:

crush, recycle… and repeat… again and again. 

Refoil products are 100% recycled. They are composed of pre-consumer and post-consumer scrap aluminium. After being used, hairdressers only need to crush together scraps of used Refoil in big balls. Bigger the better. This way the aluminum will not tear during the separation process ensuring the whole operation. Once the refoil is crushed correctly, the balls will be sent to the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) where they are easily sorted and then recycled.

The Refoil life cycle

These big balls of aluminum are melted down into coins before the manufacturing stage. There is no extracting minerals and smelting in pure aluminium. A process that requires a huge amount of energy and water and releases greenhouse gas in the air. Adopting this process, Refoil saves up to 97% of water and uses only 5% of the energy necessary to smelt extracted minerals. Without mentioning the preservation of landscapes: no more going to the landfill.. while increasing ‘green’ jobs.

Education is the key

The cleverness of ‘refoiling’ is obviously the recycling mechanism but it’s also really about the informative communication approach. Most hairdressers did not know how to recycle favorably. In order to solve this problem, Refoil launched the campaign “How big are your balls” to encourage the practice of crushing the foils properly. They also support salons with valuable information to help the hairdressing industry to become more sustainable. Mojca, owner of Kinky Curly Straight and a happy Refoil customer, says that sustainable behavior goes far beyond the hair salon:

For our salon team it’s a no brainer. It’s something we decided to do from day one and no one ever questions it. We even started changing our team’s behaviour outside of the salon.

One thing is for certain: to remain beautiful and maintain old practices, we need to reflect on new techniques and tools. By rethinking the chain of foil production, Refoil became an admirable example of implementing a sustainable process and a fun attitude in the hairdressing industry.