The Gordon Celebrates 10 Years with Sustainable Salons

2025-08-20

The Gordon’s Hairdressing and Beauty programs are celebrating a decade of making a measurable difference for the planet, people, and the local community thanks to a long-standing partnership with Sustainable Salons, a not-for-profit resource recovery program helping salons across Australia and New Zealand achieve zero waste.

Through this initiative, up to 95% of salon resources used during training sessions and client visits at The Gordon’s student-operated salon are diverted from landfill and given a second life.

Person sitting in salon chair.

Since joining Sustainable Salons in 2016, The Gordon has had a decade of impact, rescuing 3,540 kilograms of waste from landfill, including:

 

223kg of hair, transformed into hair booms to soak up oil spills on land or at sea.

 

745kg of plastics, repurposed into closed-loop products such as combs and sunglasses.

 

1,491kg of paper, recycled to save the equivalent of 25 trees.

 

1,081kg of metals, recycled to provide funding for more than 865 meals through food rescue charities OzHarvest and KiwiHarvest.

Even ponytails collected during salon visits are sent to charitable organisations and wigmakers to support people experiencing medically-induced hair loss.

Our partnership with Sustainable Salons means our students are learning their craft in a way that’s responsible, innovative, and community-minded, 
-- Jacinta Ramsay, The Gordon’s Program Lead – Retail. 

“We’re not only training the next generation of hairdressers and beauty professionals, we’re shaping a workforce that’s committed to sustainable practices from day one.”

Inside The Gordon’s salons, a simple yet powerful four-bin system ensures nothing goes to waste:

  • Metals are remade into new aluminium packaging
  • Paper is recycled into new paper products
  • Hair is collected for environmental clean-up solutions
  • Plastics are kept in circulation and repurposed

Across Australia and New Zealand, Sustainable Salons has already diverted over 2.2 million kilograms of resources from landfill, and The Gordon is proud to have contributed to this milestone.

“This partnership shows how small changes can create big impacts,” Ms Ramsay added. “Every foil, every offcut, every strand of hair can be a resource rather than waste.”

The Gordon invites clients and students alike to take part in this movement, proving that beauty and sustainability can go hand in hand.

For those keen to hone their own skills with hair, The Gordon offers a range of courses spanning Hairdressing and Barbering.

For more information on treatments available for the public  
Call 5225 0890