Hair from Lechbruck should save the environment
Created: 03/15/2022, 11:27 am
By: Silke Zinc
Lucie Kotter wants to do something for the environment and is therefore now sending the hair she cut off from her family's hairdressing salon in Lechbruck to a company that uses it to clean water.
© Silke Zink
Lechbruck – Lucie Kotter from the Salon Kotter of the same name collects hair that has been cut off and is doing something for the environment.
How it works.
Quite simply: hair has the special property of absorbing a lot of fat and not losing this function even after cutting.
Therefore, they are ideal to be used as a natural cleaning agent against pollution such as oil, petrol and sunscreen residues in bodies of water such as seas, rivers and lakes.
“Until now, we have disposed of the cut hair in the residual waste.
The hair that is made into wigs is rather rare,” says Kotter.
Every year, around 83,000 hairdressing salons in Germany dispose of tons of hair leftovers in this way.
However, the question of whether the hair that has been cut off is still useful for something was always present for Thomas Keitel, management consultant for hairdressing salons, and Emidio Gaudioso, hairdressing entrepreneur from Bückeburg.
Together they looked for a way to do something good with the hair they cut off and discovered the "hair filter".
The model for her was the French association "Coiffeurs Justes" (fair hairdressers) from southern France, which fills the hair into old nylon stockings, ties them into rolls and then uses them as filters in polluted waters.
The suction function of the hair filter pulls the oil out of the water, is then cleaned and can be reused up to eight times.
A kilogram of hair can filter up to eight kilograms of oil from the water.
These hair filters are used worldwide.
In lakes and bodies of water, in front of industrial areas and on coasts to filter oils, fuel residues and suntan lotion out of the water.
In the summer of 2019, the hair filters were also used off Mauritius when a freighter ran aground there and lost several thousand tons of oil.
First successes
That was exactly the solution: Thomas Keitel and Emidio Gaudioso contacted "Coiffeurs Justes", informed the first hairdressing salons and drove through Germany and Austria for the first time in November 2021 to pick up leftover hair from 270 hairdressing salons, which only contacted them by word of mouth had and wanted to participate.
On this tour alone, 671 kilograms of hair leftovers were collected, which are to be transported to southern France.
The CO2 emissions of these journeys over thousands of kilometers have already been certified as climate-neutral by "Cut Climate Change".
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On January 1st, a good idea became a company in the form of a UG based in Bückeburg, which is intended to ensure natural sustainability and logistics.
The plan is to work with German companies such as the Rieswick Wig Factory, which makes felted mats from the leftover hair.
This logistics should also be established in Germany and the neighboring countries.
The hair filters can be used anywhere where petrol or engine oil has leaked, where motor boats anchor and refuel, on beaches and where water has become polluted.
»We are proud of that«
When the young Lechbruck master hairdresser Lucie Kotter heard about this idea, it was a matter of the heart for the young mum to take part.
And so Kotter and her employees collect the cut hair every day in their Lechbruck salon.
"Sometimes there is more hair, and sometimes less," reports the 24-year-old.
“But it is important that we are part of #hairhelptheoceans.
And we are all proud that we are actively doing something to protect the environment.”
It is not an additional expense, as Kotter assures.
"It's the same effort whether I throw my hair in the garbage bag or put it in the #hairhelptheoceans paper bag."
In order to take part in this campaign, the salon must be registered and will be provided with paper bags for a small fee, which can be picked up in a climate-neutral manner.
Lucie Kotter, who was Germany's youngest master hairdresser four years ago, is the third generation to work in the traditional Lechbruck salon and confirms that her customers are also very enthusiastic about the campaign.