Kakadu 2016

I don’t think I have visited a place and been as affected as I was, going to Kakadu. This amazing country of ours has so much to offer and as an Australian I believe every Aussie should go and experience Kakadu.

Being in such an amazing industry allows me to go to some amazing places and recently as part of the Schwarzkopf PH group we had our latest conference in Darwin and Kakadu. PH is a group that Schwarzkopf formed many years ago and it is about getting salon owners together to network with each other. There were around 80 salon owners on this conference and it is great networking with like-minded people.

Kakadu makes you realise a lot of things about our Indigenous people. So often we see only the dark side of these people and until I visited Kakadu my understanding of their culture was at best very vague. It is amazing how much they are attached to their land. They are a part of it. They understand what makes it tick and to them their land is where they belong.

Like a lot of people I get sick and tired of being blamed for their demise as a race as I really had nothing to do with it way back when, but after seeing Kakadu and getting a little education on the Aboriginals, it makes me see why taking them away from their land was a big mistake. Their ability to have survived tens of thousands of years alone needs to be respected. Unfortunately a lot of them now are caught up in the downfalls of western society and I only hope together we can do something to bring them back to what they understand best and that is their land (country).

You might be thinking what this has to do with hairdressing. It’s funny when I talk about taking from our land. Believe me I am not a greenie by any means but I have become very concerned with how as humans we just want to take and not give back. I believe that this sort of attitude will one day have a massive impact on us. It might not be in our lifetime but I think if we don’t change our ways the generations after us will pay a big price.

We had a presenter at the conference by the name of Paul Frasca. Paul is the co-founder of Sustainable Salons. In short Sustainable Salons are a recycling resource for hair salons. I have attached a short video on what they do and at Hair by Phd we are looking at getting involved with them.

Seeing Paul’s presentation and getting an understanding of the impact hair salons have on our environment, has made me re think how we get rid of our waste. It’s ironic how seeing his presentation and then listening to Kakadu rangers on the same trip had the same message. When Aborigines’ live off their land they always put back what they don’t use. The consequences of not doing this means future generations don’t eat or survive.

Being involved with the Sustainable Salons program means we go to recycling 95% of the salons waste. This is massive when you consider the recycling we do now, near nothing. As salons we land fill 400,000kgs of hair every year when it can be used to make hair booms to soak up oil spills or be used as fertiliser in gardens. We landfill 1.5 million kilos of foil. All this can be recycled over and over again. These are just two things that can be recycled; others include chemical waste and plastics.

Like I said I have never considered my self a greenie but as a father of now four children I do care about the world we leave behind for them. Hope this hasn’t been to deep for all of you and I will share more information with you about Sustainable Salons when the program is implemented into our salons.

Enjoy the images attached of Kakadu; I know I very much enjoyed taking them.

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Look forward to see you in the salon soon.

Cheers,

Sarkis Akle