From salon to soil
Jenna Stevens shares the story of Norfolk's remarkable eco-revolution as a unique project aims to enrich our county's soils.
Earlier this spring, a quiet stretch of Norfolk soil became the centre of a global sustainability solution. Gathering on local farmland,
a team of environmental leaders from across the globe came together to tackle a rather unusual problem: the surplus of hair waste. In a collaborative project with Matter of Trust, The Green Salon Collective and Wild Soils, a truly creative solution emerged as two giant pawprints made of recycled hair appeared in the heart of the countryside.
While your trip to the salon for a pampering cut may seem far removed from environmental challenges, the surplus of waste hair is a surprisingly overlooked concern. According to the Green Salon Collective, 6,700 tonnes of human hair waste is produced in the UK each year, with a staggering 98% ending up in landfill. Luckily, the Collective finds innovative ways to address this, and the discarded hair from your salon visit can be repurposed into all sorts of wonderful sustainable solutions.
“There’s an amazing world out there that you’d never even think of,” beams Jess Rigg, the Collective’s Marketing and Operations Manager. “We’ve made sculptures in London Design Week, worked with mechanics who use hair mats underneath cars to soak up oil, and helped clean up oil spills in Northern Ireland”.
Now, alongside Matter of Trust and other global sustainability leaders, a team has come together in West Norfolk to highlight how hair can transform regenerative farming.“What’s interesting is that we’re now utilising short hair; the long hair we receive is taken and felted into mats to soak up oil spills. The reason we shampoo is because hair soaks up oil,” explains Lisa Gautier, President of Matter of Trust.
“We kept getting all this short hair, but nobody was doing anything large scale with it. We knew it was beneficial for soil, so we started using it as hair mulch.” Hair mulch is a soil amendment made from recycled hair, fur and wool that is both fully natural and biodegradable. Keratin from hair fibres breaks down slowly, releasing enriching nitrogen into the soil. This increases moisture retention, acts as a weed deterrent, and leads to significant improvements in soil health. The mulch also attracts moths and butterflies, which aid in decomposition. “Moths come, just like they do to your woolly sweaters and linen shirts” explains Lisa. “A 2022 study by the University of Sussex found that moths are even better pollinators than bees. There are more moths than butterflies and bees, and they just flock to this!”
Working with Nick Padwick of Wild Soils (referred to by Lisa as “King of Compost”) the team will explore the effectiveness of human hair, wool, and pet fur in contributing to soil health. In total, half a hectare of farmland is set to be nourished with approximately 4 tonnes of wool, 1.2 tonnes of hair and 1 tonne of fur, sourced from across the UK. With donations from hair salons, pet groomers, wigmakers and other key supporters, this experiment is shaping the culture of how we view hair: from a forgotten waste material to a valuable, renewable resource.
The team has been hard at work, diligently spreading bundles of hair and fur from huge bags across the soil on a stretch of Norfolk farmland. Some has been separated into specific plots for research and some arranged into two giant pawprints, serving as a fun visual representation of the regeneration of a natural resource back into the earth. They stomped over the pawprints as if crushing grapes, marvelling as the hair clung to the earth like Velcro. “When you put this stuff down it doesn’t really blow away,” Lisa remarks. “Microbes grab it, and it felts.” Although the concept may seem unusual, hair has been nourishing our soils for thousands of years. “As we’ve started keeping animals indoors, poisoning mice and rats, and paving roads, we no longer have the fibre and animal winter coats that used to fall to the ground,” explains Lisa. This cycle of fibre enriching our soils has now largely been forgotten. Matter of Trust is on a mission to revive this long-lost relationship between fibre and earth, bringing soil into the spotlight.
The team will return to the farm this September to check on the project’s progress, and its results are likely to contribute significantly to the future of regenerative farming. Although hair mulch is now gaining global attention, it’s also something gardeners can experiment with at home. The Matter of Trust website encourages individuals to make use of dog fur clippings or hair from hairbrushes and shower drains, placing them in their gardens, flowerpots and window boxes to promote healthier plants and soils everywhere.
Visit TheHumSum.org, Matter of Trust’s environmental social media platform, to donate materials and keep up to date with the latest projects. Learn more about the hair sustainability revolution at GreenSalonCollective.com and GreenGroomersCollective.com
