Two Australian businesses have teamed up to create something cool, functional and – most importantly – positive for our planet, by turning used shampoo bottles into $100 sunglasses.
Sustainable Salons collects waste from salons across Australia and New Zealand, and Dresden Vision uses the plastic to create sunglasses, prescription sunglasses and prescription glasses frames.
Dresden Vision’s co-founder Bruce Jeffreys said that the properties of recycled plastics means they can be recycled into better products than people realise.
“The reality in Australia is if any plastics are recycled, they’re recycled into very, very low-grade uses,” he says, such as bins and speed bumps.
“Shampoo bottles are actually a great material that we’ve made into a higher quality product. We want to use the quality of the plastics to their best advantage.”
Jeffreys credits the idea to Sustainable Salons, which collects and cleans reusable waste from salons for recycling into quality products.
Sustainable Salons has been working with beauty, hair and pet-grooming salons to rescue salon waste from landfill since 2015. Founded by Paul Frasca and Ewelina Soroko, Sustainable Salons aims to help give consumers the chance to change their consumption behaviour.
“It’s not just about recycling, it’s about what we do with all the materials — that’s a really big part — as well as what it adds to the community,” Frasca told SmartCompany.
“And then the other big part is how do we drive the businesses who sign up to our program?”
“We’re all about people, planet and profit,” he adds.
Shop the collection here.
