How to Use Garbage Bags at Beauty Centers?

Just stop for a moment and think about how many beauty centers there are all over the world and how much waste they produce on a daily basis. Millions of people visit all those places and have different procedures done on them, like hair styling, coloring, bleaching, botox, different means of skincare, etc. Have you ever wondered if a huge amount of waste is produced after all these procedures? And have you ever wondered what happens with all the waste?

Like everything in life, beauty salon waste also needs to be taken care of. Otherwise, it threatens to harm the whole planet. If not, all the waste that is produced on a daily basis ends up in landfills, which is a potential threat to our environment because they contain a lot of poisonous chemicals. There are ways that beauty centers can handle this situation. There are even regulations in some countries that have special regulations for waste disposal and demand beauty salons properly handle their waste disposal process. But before seeing the options of how to dispose of waste, let’s first see what types of waste beauty centers produce.

Types of Beauty Center Waste

Apart from hair, beauty salons produce other types of waste, including different chemicals, tin foil, broken hair-dryers and hair straighteners, shampoo bottles, needles, old scissors, cleaning products, etc.

All of this salon waste falls into two categories: clinical and general. It’s worth mentioning that not all beauty centers generate both of these types of waste. Salon managers need to know that the way people handle clinical waste differs from the way they handle general waste so that they know how to dispose of it correctly. Now, let’s see what kind of waste both types include.

General Beauty Salon Waste

General salon waste includes paper trash, containers, hair or chemicals used in various hair treatments. Technically, it includes everything that does not have bodily fluids or sharp edges and is not poisonous. Each product that is used in the salons has different safety instructions, so make sure you and your employees are aware of these because it’s important for their storage and disposal.

Clinical Salon Waste

Clinical salon waste is considered dangerous because it includes everything left from different kinds of treatments and procedures. It may contain bodily fluids and germs and can pass on the infection. Examples of clinical salon waste are q-tips, needles, gloves, etc.

All beauty salons are responsible for disposing of the waste they produce. It’s important for the health of their own staff, clients, and society in general. That’s why salon managers need to be aware of how every type of waste is disposed of and take the necessary actions not to harm the environment or reduce the damage.

What Actions Should Be Taken to Dispose of Salon Waste?

After learning about the types of salon waste and their potential harm to the environment, it becomes obvious how important it is to take action to take care of the waste generated on a daily basis.

Separate Your Beauty Center Waste

Use different bins, bags, and containers for different kinds of waste. Carefully choose all the hygiene products, chemical products, other stuff, and appliances you use and put them in different bags. It will help to sort the waste (whether it’s about cutting hair or something else) out quickly and effectively. Here is one way you can make good use of garbage bags at your salon.

Types of Garbage Bags and How to Use Them

There are three types of garbage bags to collect waste: recycling, compost and trash bags. Each of these bags has its own color. Recycling bags are usually blue, compost bags are green, and trash bags are black or grey. Accordingly, you can sort out your salon waste in those bags. Put all the recyclable things, like aluminum foil, wrappings, and even packaging of some products, in the blue or green bag and all the other types of trash in the black or grey bag.

At the beginning of each month, when you order all the necessary products and appliances for your beauty center, just remember to order those bags in different colors too. You’ll see how much easier the sorting process will become. The different colors will help your employees quickly understand where they need to put the damaged or used things into. When using the garbage bags, remember to keep them closed as you definitely don’t want to breathe in all the chemicals and other substances in them.

Also, remember to order bags in different sizes and thicknesses. You are going to put very different items in them, ones that are heavier or bigger than others, and you don’t want them to get torn while moving them out. Therefore, you may avoid putting sharp things in them, like scissors and needles. In fact, for sharps waste, you can use special bins.

How to Dispose of Sharp Waste?

First of all, it’s helpful to know that there are three different types of sharp waste. Ones that have no chemical contamination like tattoo needles or blades, ones that have been contaminated with chemical leftovers like micro pigmentation pens, and ones that are contaminated with cytotoxic products and are extremely dangerous for people’s health. They are used after certain beauty treatments, like botox or steroids.

After those tools are used, they are thrown into different garbage bins that have special lid coloring. All the sharp waste with no chemical contamination is put into bins with an orange lid. The ones that have been contaminated with chemical leftovers are put into bins with yellow lids. And finally, the ones that are extremely dangerous for health because of their high level of contamination are put into bins with purple lids.

All the waste that is not suitable for recycling falls into this category. General waste in beauty salons usually refers to hair, nails, food leftovers after lunch breaks, cleaning cloths and dirt. For those things, you should use black or grey garbage bags.

So, we’ve gone through all the types of beauty salon waste and what actions salon owners and managers can take to dispose of that waste. It’s insane to think of how much waste is generated from all the beauty treatments. Something done to make people beautiful can actually have the opposite effect on the planet. It slowly destroys our environment, and if people continue to do it without feeling any responsibility to clean up after them or properly take care of the waste, it will eventually result in serious ecological problems.