A HAIRDRESSER found an unusual way to help the environment with stuff most people wouldn’t think of.
Adele Williams has been a hairdresser working all over the world for nearly a decade when the Covid pandemic prompted her to start her own workshop.
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In March 2020, Adele left Canada to return to Wales, where she is originally from, and started a workshop that could teach people how to be sustainable.
At her old hair salon, Adele said all the waste hair was sent away to be recycled into mats that were used to absorb the oil from the water when oil spills occurred.
This gave her the idea to create a service that would allow salons in the UK to do the same, but no other shops used this method.
Instead, the average oil slick mat is usually made of polypropylene plastic.
Adele needed a workshop space and a needle felting machine that could make the mats and then started collecting her.
“I get hair sent everywhere, and it’s all human hair. It’s amazing how much I get,” she told news week†
“A lot of people donate to me; when they have a haircut they send me an envelope with their hair. I get a package in the mail and it becomes hair again, which is quite strange.”
She said her experience as a hairdresser means that the thought of touching hair and heads “doesn’t bother me” as it does other people.
“And most of the hair sent to me is washed and cleaned anyway,” Adele added. “When I receive her from private individuals, I leave for three months in case there is something in it. But I never really found anything unpleasant.”
Adele made her first mat in November 2020 and has made about 100 of them since.
She said the mats absorb at least four times their weight in oil and she tested them in several ways.
The process takes about two hours, but Adele says it can take about 45 minutes with two people.
“So my goal now is to make this part of my case founded as a social enterprise and get funding to get a large unit or factory so we can make these mats on a larger scale and become the first response to oil spills in the UK.”
Adele said she is inspired to make the world a better place and finds it amazing that “this stuff grows out of our heads” because it can solve a lot of problems.
It has become her passion because it is much more effective and does not harm the environment.
Adele is now the founder of Workshop Green Wave Hair in Pembrokeshire in the United Kingdom.
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