Celebrate Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Zotos Professional is a proud member of Green Circle Salons, an organization dedicated to saving the planet and preserving the environment through sustainable beauty practices. 

As wonderful as hair and beauty products are, they come at a serious cost to our Mother Earth. Did you know that the beauty industry produces 877 pounds of waste every minute

Certified Sustainable Salons help change that by recovering products, lowering their carbon emissions, and showing the world how beauty can be beautiful for both people and the planet. 

If you haven’t celebrated Earth Day since elementary school, don’t worry. We’re here to talk about this awesome event, what it recognizes, and how we help make a difference through the Green Circle Salons organization.

When Is Earth Day? 

Earth Day 2024 is Monday, April 22nd. You’ll be able to kick off an entire green weekend! Maybe take a walk through your park and appreciate the birdsong and blossoming spring foliage.

Visiting a farmer’s market and using your own tote can cut down on plastics while supporting your local agricultural community. You can also practice recycling, start a garden, and share some info about Earth Day on social media to help others do their part in protecting our planet!

Here’s a little background info to catch you up to speed.

Earth Day is a global event that promotes environmental awareness and activism. It’s recognized in over 190 countries around the world. 

The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970.  You might not be surprised that the nature-loving hippies of the time were passionate advocates for greater environmental action in their government.

The truth is, not everyone was aware how their consumerism was affecting the environment. Most people bought, used, and disposed of their food and possessions freely with little thought to where it wound up. 

That’s why we have such a major landfill problem today

However, as people began to take greater interest in the impacts of consumerism on the environment, Earth Day came to be. In 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin decided to take a note from students’ anti-war protests to spark interest in environmental conservation. 

Along with the help of his co-chair Congressman Pete McCloskey, Nelson organized the first Earth Day seminars on college campuses with the help of an activist named Denis Hayes. Hayes was 25 years old at the time. After one semester, he dropped out of Harvard Kennedy School to lead the grassroots Earth Day rally. 

His work was a success. The first Earth Day drew in nearly 20 million Americans. Now, Hayes is the CEO of a Seattle nonprofit that protects the Pacific Northwest’s ecosystems. 

What Is Sustainability? 

Sustainability is a common buzzword these days, but what does it mean? 

Sustainability is being mindful of the entire lifecycle of the food and products you use. This means thinking about where they come from, how they’re made, and where they go when you’re finished with them.

In the beauty biz, we go through quite a lot of plastic-based materials. Every year, the world produces 300 tons of plastic waste. That’s why the Green Circle Salons initiatives are so impactful. They help salons restore, recover, and reduce how much waste they produce without ever compromising sanitation or quality for clients. 

Living sustainably doesn’t take any fancy new products or expensive investments. All you have to do is start researching the products you use. Be mindful of how much you consume as well. 

Learning to take exactly as much as you need and avoid being wasteful can have a major impact on how much waste you produce each year. 

What Does Green Circle Certified Mean? 

Our products are developed and tested in the Zotos Professional salon, which is Green Circle Certified. There are over 16,000 members currently participating. 

Green Circle certification is a sign that we follow the best sustainability practices of the Green Circle Salons organization. That means we know how to recycle, repurpose, and safely dispose of beauty waste with minimal impact on the environment. 

Green Circle Certified salons recycle far more than you’d think. For example, hair clippings are gathered, sent to Green Circle, and then used in compost, turned into biocomposite to make recycled plastics, used in research, or turned into other products that aid humanitarian efforts. 

Leftover hair color becomes clean energy by separating it into oil and water. The water returns to the system where it’s purified, sanitized, and reused. Oil gets turned into fuel. 

You can learn more about where beauty waste goes for Green Circle Certified salons here. 

Green Circle Salons Accomplishments

The environmental impact from Green Circle is enormous. Since 2009, 16,000+ Waste Warriors have saved more than 8,589,000 pounds of waste from entering landfills and waterways. 

Just this year, the company announced the first-ever carbon-neutral salon certification in North America. This will allow salons to not only prevent less waste but also lower their total carbon emissions to protect our climate. 

After the COVID-19 pandemic, salon professionals found themselves with tons of used masks and personal protective equipment like face shields (PPEs). In response to this, Green Circle launched the PPE Recovery Initiative

With the help of Green Circle, salons can recover 100% of their PPE costs. The used PPEs are recycled and turned into clean energy and building materials. 

Why You Should Choose a Green Circle Salon

Good hair shouldn’t come at the cost of our environment. By choosing a Green Circle Salon, you can rest assured that your beauty treatments won’t be hurting the plant. 

Remember what we said about sustainability? It’s about mindfulness. This means being conscious about where you go for services and how they’re performed. 

You may think that beauty waste is out of your hands, but not anymore! Empower yourself and others around you by choosing Green Circle Salons for all your haircare and beauty treatments. 

We wish you a happy Earth Day! Stay green!