What waste does a salon or barber business produce?

Hair is the obvious one and the most misunderstood. In small quantities mixed with general waste, it’s fine in trade general waste. In bulk, particularly when collected separately or contaminated with chemicals, it’s classified as offensive waste and goes into tiger bags. Most salons sit somewhere in between, and the right answer depends on volume and how you’re storing it.

Chemical residue is the regulated one. Leftover dye, bleach, peroxide, perm solutions. The Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 catch any of these in concentrated form. Rinse water that’s heavily diluted often goes to trade effluent down the salon sink, but only if your water company’s authorised you for trade effluent discharge.

Aerosols like hairsprays, mousses and dry shampoos. Empty ones are pressurised waste and hazardous. They can’t go in general waste in any volume. Most salons collect them in a separate container for a specialist run or use a manufacturer take-back scheme.

If you offer piercing, microblading or any treatment using sharps, you’re producing clinical sharps waste and need a sharps box. Same applies to barbers using cut-throat razor blades, though disposable razor cartridges are usually a different category.

Then there’s the everyday stuff. Towels for laundry, foils, gloves, hair clippings on the floor, packaging from retail product. Most of it’s general waste or mixed recycling.

What’s the typical bin spec for a salon or barber?

A small salon with two or three stations usually runs a 240L general waste bin or trade sacks, plus a 240L mixed recycling for cardboard product packaging and clean retail bottles. Add a hazardous chemical container for dye and bleach residue, supplier-provided in most cases, collected quarterly or on call. An aerosol bin or take-back scheme. A sharps box if you offer piercing or microblading.

Barber shops typically run lighter on chemicals but generate more disposable blade and razor waste, so the sharps box gets used more. Wet shave specialists need to factor that in properly.

Bigger salons, multi-chair colour houses or training academies, scale up to 660L or 1100L general bins and may need a bulk chemical collection rather than ad hoc containers.

What specialist streams do salons deal with?

Dye and bleach concentrate is the headline hazardous stream. Mixing bowl residue, used colour tubes with product still in them, decanted leftover bleach. All of it counts as hazardous under the 2005 regulations once you cross the threshold for storing hazardous waste on site.

Trade effluent‘s the second issue. Rinsing colour and bleach down the salon basin is discharge to sewer. Water companies set local trade effluent consents, and using the drain for diluted chemical rinse without a consent in place is technically unauthorised. Worth a call to your water company.

Aerosols are the third. Empty hairsprays are pressurised containers, classified hazardous if any product or propellant remains. Specialist aerosol recycling is the proper route. Some salons take theirs back to the wholesaler if there’s a take-back scheme on that brand.

What compliance pitfalls catch salons out?

The duty of care is the main one. Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 section 34, every business has to make sure its waste goes to a licensed carrier and keep transfer notes for two years. Salons that use household-style bags and the council street bin are breaching duty of care, because that’s domestic disposal of trade waste.

Hazardous waste consignment notes for chemical streams, three-year retention. Aerosols routinely missed, treated as general waste when they shouldn’t be. And the Simpler Recycling rules from 31 March 2025 mean salons with 10 or more employees need to separate dry recyclable streams, food waste and general at source. Micro-firms under ten staff have until 31 March 2027.

Wales is already under the Workplace Recycling Regulations 2024, which require source-segregation across paper, card, plastic, metal, glass, food and other streams.