CLIENTS of a Haverfordwest hair salon are having their discarded hair turned into mats.

Customers of Green Wave hair salon in Haverfordwest will find that when their hair is styled, any left-over clippings will be swept up and put through a weaving machine at the back of the store, all for the environment.

Adele Williams, 26, runs the sustainable hair salon that is looking to help the environment in more ways than one.

The mats are excellent at absorbing oil and so would prove useful tools in the fight against oil spills of whatever nature.

“You shampoo hair because it absorbs oil,” explains Adele.

“I collect hair and have a machine out back that sews the hair together and creates oil absorbent mats which are more effective and more sustainable than polypropene mats the industry uses at the moment.”

Hairdresser Adele weaving hair into mats

Adele’s got it down, reducing the time it takes to make the mats from four hours to two

"My place is a place for individuals and free spirits,” said Adele who cottoned on to the idea while working in a hair salon in Canada.

“All the hair got recycled there and I had not heard of that before so I looked to start that up when I got here.”

One of the first in the UK

Adele, from the Whitland area, got help to set up the scheme with charity The Matter of Trust and is the first salon in the UK doing this.

Following a recent oil spill in the Pacific, off the coast of Peru, free hair cuts were offered in the country so clean up teams could gather hair to make mats to soak up the oil.

She is currently stockpiling mats with an aim to sell them to industries next year.

Adele says she’s doing something different which she revels in.

“I pride myself on sustainability and I like being a place where people can come when they do not like the normal hairdressers,” Adele beams.

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