(Luận văn thạc sĩ) waste and waste management in nail salon

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY NGHIEM THI TRANG WASTE AND WASTE MANAGEMENT IN NAIL SALON IN AUSTRALIA, CASE STUDIES IN ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA BACHELOR THESIS Study mode : Full time Major : Environmental Science and Management Faculty : International Program Office Batch : 2013-2017 Thai Nguyen, 23/09/2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, I would like to say thanks to all AEP lecturers and officers for supporting me during the time I was studying in Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry and also for helping me to get the great opportunity to come to Australia to complete my final thesis I would love to express my profound gratitude to Mr Lai Trong Tinh (MA), who has supported me by giving suggestion and critic of the building that contributed the development of my ideas throughout the project and many techniques, methods used in the field of the environment I sincerely thanks to Ms Ly Thi Thuy Duong (MA) for her advices, assistance, sharing experiences before and after I went to Australia, helping me to understand and complete the thesis I am also thankful to my employer and colleagues … They have been very kindly in providing me with constructive feedback, experiences and suggestions for my report and helping me to successfully complete my reports I also want to give many thanks to my family for providing me emotion, encouragement, physical and financial support Finally, I would love to thank all those other persons who helped me in completing this report Because of my lack knowledge, the mistake is inevitable, I am very grateful if I receive the comments and opinions from teachers and others to contribute my report Sincerely, Nghiem Thi Trang ii PART I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research rationale Nowadays, along the development of socio-economics, people really focus on their appearance such as outfit, body, hairstyle, skin and even nails Base on the survey conducted by the author on group of 50 customers in researched nail salons, there are up to 70 percent of Australian woman coming to nail salons will Figure Nail art get the nails done for every weeks Therefore, the number of spa, salon is increasing significantly in Australia Like the United States, Australia provides full nail services in salons There are 3,045 nail and waxing salons in the nation, as indicated by IBIS World Nail salons in Australia have accomplished relentless development over a large portion of the previous five years Industry income has been bolstered by rising interest of new services such as growing in the female population (the essential customers) Personal Waxing and Nail Salons Market Research Report anticipates that industry income should increment by an annualized 1.3% over the five years through 201516, to reach $541.2 million (Sree, 2016) Unlike United State, Australia government does not require nail technician to have beauty therapist or nail technology certificate/license by law So nail salons just need the business registration to be opened and not being under the rigid management from government, according to nail salon owner interview by the author Moreover, the nail technicians not have enough knowledge and awareness of waste management that what may lead the nail salons in Australia to unsustainable due to non-control of waste and water usage According to the previous scientific reports, most of the topics just focused on the effects of nail salon, especially nail products on human health, there is very few reports of nail salon waste and they are mainly conducted in the U.S but not in Australia Therefore, the author chooses to conduct this thesis to discuss both view of actual situation and recommendations for waste management for the better Australian nail salons 1.2 Research objectives - Conduct the data of nail salon waste and water usage in South Australia - Investigate waste management in nail salon - Assess the worker awareness of waste and waste management 1.3 Research questions - What are the situation of nail salon business in South Australia in terms of salon scale, number of customers, number of workers and their income? - What are the different types of wastes which are discharged from nail salon? - How much are the average of water usage and waste water in nail salon daily? - How are the waste and waste water classified and treated in nail salon? - What are the recommendations for better waste management and water usage management in nail salon? 1.4 Limitations - One of the special characteristics of nail industry is the massive gap in the number of customer between winter and summer Therefore, the author needs to take long time to collect the data from all seasons (more than one year) in order for the date to be the most reliable and comparative - To be close to the customers as well as the workers, the author need to take part in working in nail salon, so the surveys conducted were relatively small - To find out the differences of customer demand in different area which are metropolitan and regional area, the author need to travel quite long distance so the transportation was also a disadvantage PART II LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Nail salon industry introduction Nail salons have become very popular as a common feature of towns, cities, neighborhoods and shopping centers In 2013, there were 48900 nail salons having opened and in 2017, that number increased to 56300 and $8.7 billion was spent to nail salon services in United States (Mazareanu, 2019) A nail salon is a place that provides nail beautification services for men and women Nail salons offer variety choices for nail care or nail art This includes manicure, pedicure, acrylic, polish, etc Some nail salons are offering one-stop beauty services In addition to nail services, these one-stop nail salons may include eyelash extension, facial treatments, waxing, and skin care (Quach, Nguyen, Doan-Billings, Okahara, Fan, Reynolds, 2008) Any nail treatment procedure includes a number of steps, and applications of a wide range of products as follows: - A manicure is a beauty treatment for the fingernails and hands which is performed at home or in a nail salon A manicure steps include filing and shaping the free edge, pushing and clipping (with a cuticle pusher and cuticle nippers) with various liquids, massage of the hand, and the application of fingernail polish (Esla, 2009) The primary purpose of a manicure is to maintain the hand’s overall health When the same techniques are applied to the toenails and feet, the treatment is called a pedicure (Source: Best nail salon stock) Figure Manicure service (Source: ESPN Front Row) Figure Pedicure service - Polish are normal painting to make nail color as a basic nail art In the similar texture to polish, the nails are put under the UV light, the treatment are called shellac - Sns/acrylic are powder color and used more technique and machine (drill) to file nail They are not only nail art but also make the nails stronger and harder to avoid broken nails and last longer than polish and shellac So sns and acrylic become more popular now - To remove the hair, nail salon also offer a service called waxing which is divided by normal wax and hard wax Normal wax is taken by using wax papers and warm gel applied on skin and quickly jerks off Hard wax is just applied directly on skin and peels off Nail services are performed by nail salon workers, known as nail technicians There are over 439,000 nail techs currently working in the nail salon industry in the United States (Brandon, 2018) 80 percent of nail salon workers are females, and mostly aged 25 to 44, generally with no more than a high-school education They are mainly from Asian-American communities, especially Vietnamese refugees and Chinese diasporas, roughly eight in 10 workers are paid as low-wage, meaning they earn less than $13.46 an hour A full-time or part-time worker might take home just $9 or $10 per hour, respectively, which could be as low as $30 or $40 a day (Michell, 2018) The average nail tech in the United States treats 20 customers per week About 40% of those clients will make regular bookings, while another 25% create standing appointments for services which cost in the range of $20-$50 (Brandon, 2018) 2.2 Impacts of nail salon 2.2.1 Impacts on human health Infectious diseases/ skin diseases; One thing available at nail salons that's not posted on any service menu is a contagious skin disease The infectious diseases or skin diseases are normally found out on customer as following (Sarah, 2016): (Source: DermNet NZ) Figure Nail fold infection (Source: American Osteopathic College of Dermatology) Figure Nail fold infection - Nail fold infection: all the clipping, filing, cuticle pushing and trimming which are indispensable steps that nail technicians during a manicure or pedicure can damage the nails and even lead to skin lesions Paronychia - a bacterial infection of the cuticle skin - is the most common infection caused by skin lesions Unfortunately, customers those start having manicure which makes the cuticle skin growing faster and messier so they need trimming them continuously This problem causes their skin worse and worse and leading to nail fold infection (Source: Medicine Net) (Source: Onehealth) Figure Follicular infection Figure Follicular infection - Follicular infection: pedicure foot spa tubs may cause another health risk: a bacterial infection effected by nontuberculous mycobacteria While the customer got a skin wound and soak their feet into a footbath, they may be at risk of having mycobacteria enter the bloodstream and infect the follicles To avoid having this happen, experts say it’s best not to shave the legs right before getting a pedicure However, Australian women like waxing before having pedicure what make they feel cleaner than doing the contrast and they not want to break that habit (Source: Nails Magazine) Figure Contact dermatitis Table Number of plastic bag and rubber gloves disposed in salon located in metropolitan area daily Table Amount of plastic bag and rubber gloves disposed in salon located in regional area daily As estimated by the author, the average amount of plastic and rubber gloves disposed per day is up to 0.024 m3 and count to 70% in the total of general waste 24 Metal waste As describing in nail services, sns and acrylic is harder and last longer than others, so they could not be removed easily by acetone like polish, therefore, the nail technicians need to file color on the nails to be thinner, then put cotton ball on the nails with acetone, wrap them with aluminum foil to avoid air and wait for 5-10 minutes In some salon, they remove the shellac color by using drill machine to file the color off However, this is quite hard for customers and they require the color to be taken off by using aluminum foil wrap To wrap one finger nail, technicians need to use 49cm2 of aluminum foil, so the average area of aluminum foil used daily can be estimated by the area of aluminum foil used for one customer multiply with the number of customers who received the aluminum foil used services Figure 20 Aluminum foil is used to take off old nail color Average area= 49×10×average number of customer use aluminum foil 25 Table The average area of aluminum foil used per day (cm2) (Source: The Rowan Tree) Figure 21 Callus heel before and after being removed by razors In Australia, 80% in total number of woman going to nail salon to get pedicure have callus on their heel because of wearing tongs instead of shoes So they usually ask for removing callus by using razor and there are up to 12-15 razors used in each salon every day 26 Figure 22 Razors discharged Additionally, metal waste also contains the broken equipment such as cuticle pusher, cuticle nippers and nail clippers Waste water Unlike in Vietnam, the equipment such as cuticle pusher, nippers, nail clippers, buffers and files are used for only one customer before they are washed well under the running water, soaked in anti-bacteria liquid and put in sterilizer For pedicure, water used to fill up the spa can be up to 14 gallons per service (12 gallons for the foot soak, plus to gallons to rinse the basin and jet) Then the number of waste water per day in each salon can be calculated by multiply with number of customer having pedicure 27 In additional, water in nail salon is used for washing customer’s hands after each service and also for cleaning the salon in the end of the day To dry the customer’s hands after they wash their hands and after manicure or pedicure, towels are used as many as the number of customers every day That’s reason why washing machine also plays an important role in raising the amount of water usage Table Average amount of water used in nail salon located in city (gallons) Table Average amount of water used in nail salon located in regional area (gallons) 28 Other waste In pedicure service, after using razors to remove the callus, the nail technicians need to clean dead skin by using sponge scrubber with softener lotion To avoid infectious diseases, some nail salon owners prefer to use the scrubber only one time then though it away rather than wash them and reuse like what they did in the past Therefore, the number of sponge scrubber discharged is equivalent with the number of customer using pedicure every day Figure 23 Sponge Scrubber Secondly, lots of dust can be found in hoover as fake finger tips (plastic) and color powder (sns, acrylic, shellac) which is taken off by drill machine Figure 24 Dust disposed after taking old nail color off 29 Moreover, cotton balls are one of the most important things in nail salon They can be used for removing the color by adding acetone, wrapping underneath aluminum foil, or even cleaning the nail again before painting The cotton balls should be classified as hazard waste because they contain many different chemicals from acetone, gel polish, color powder… Figure 25 Used cotton ball Personal waxing is also a desirable service that Australian woman wish to every weeks This may cause many papers containing wax which are discharged to the general waste For nail technicians, they need not only rubber gloves for protect their skin from the toxicity but also the masks Masks in nail salon is one time used mask and very thin, so the workers usually wear masks together in one time and they will change to the new one if needed Additionally, the others wastes could be carton, product containers (polish/shellac bottles), toe separators, tongs, and the things Unfortunately, to compete with others, some nail salons offer free coffee and water for every single customer that unintentionally make a lot of waste such as cup and bottles As statistic, the average number of bottles and cups are discharged in nail salon per day can be up to 20 and even more in the summer 30 4.3 Waste management Waste classification and treatment in nail salon According to the interviews, wastes in nail salons are classified by the workers into recyclable waste, metal waste and general waste: - Recyclable waste in nail salon mostly comes from water bottles and carton; they are put into recycled bin which is collected every weeks Or in some salons, workers collect bottles and bring to recycled collected centers which are located only in South Australia state and Northern Territory state then get refund for 10 cent per bottle - Metal wastes are identified as aluminum foil, razors, broken cuticle pusher, cuticle nippers, nail clippers and they should be come to the same bin However, nail salon workers just classify razors as metal waste and throw them to ‘disposal safe bin’ The other wastes come to general bin without worker awareness - General waste is the other waste except liquid waste Each salon is provided only one bin (~ 0.24 cubic meters) for general waste which is collected every week by Suez Company, a waste collection companies outsourced by the South Australian Government However, the bin is too small for containing the amount of general waste in one week, so the nail salon owners either store garbage in salon to wait for disposing in the next week or discharge waste in the public bins Waste water in nail salon includes water used for pedicure, water used for washing and anti-bacteria liquid In nail salon, there is only one sewage system, so all the waste water will be discharged directly into city’s sewage system Waste treatment after going out from nail salon Because of the limited time and difficulty in getting permission to go into the waste treatment factory to investigation, the author could not collect the information of treatment methods Therefore, the author can just find out the waste destination: 31 - General waste in Adelaide city will be collected every Thursday by Suez Company and carried to the address: Lot 246, Wilkins Road, Wingfield SA 5013 where they will be classified and treated - Recycled waste: bottles after carrying to recycle depot will be classified as plastic bottles, cans and glass bottles and going to be treated - Water and solid waste will be discharged to the sewage system and be treated in one of three major wastewater treatment plants at Bolivar, Glenelg and Christies Beach, South Australia The water after recycling will be used for irrigating farmland, parks and outdoor sports grounds, gardens, or in toilets and for washing cars Nail salon worker’s awareness According to the surveys of 10 nail salon workers, the author has got the results as following chart: Table 10 Worker's answers about their awareness of waste management in nail salon 32 There was shocking news that 90% workers not any attention to the waste management in the nail salon and they usually follow the previous workers in collecting and treating waste Moreover, only 30% workers know about the state as well as the government policy in the waste classification and apply in the nail salon Fortunately, after surveying, the workers have been explained about the waste classification and management, 80% of them agreed that the nail salon will be better and more sustainable under the good waste management Therefore, 70% workers answered that they were willing to classify waste and change the habit in discharging waste 33 PART V RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Recommendations 5.1.1 Reducing water usage As described, mostly water used is for pedicure and washing However, this amount of water can be reduced by many different ways Actually, the pedicure includes foot spa and toe nails painted Mainly customers require their foot to be cleaned while the others just want the toe nails painted Therefore, before doing pedicure, nail technicians can ask the customer either they really need foot spa or not Moreover, to combat the unsustainable environment of pedicure foot spas, the waterless pedicure method is a useful arrangement in the choices for professional spas within the know and it is called dry pedicure Dry pedicure is introduced as new technique which has been done by using warm lotion, warm booties, and hot towels The advantages of dry pedicure were found such as no water used, nail polish lasts longer, avoiding infectious diseases by not soaking feet in the tub…hence the water is used only for steaming towels 5.1.2 Raising the worker’s awareness for better waste management in salon Reducing waste in nail salon is a big challenge and it is totally depended on worker’s activities Firstly, the nail salon owners need to be aware of the consequences of non-control waste Therefore, they can give the rules as well as the force in waste classification and management to the workers The workers can reduce waste by changing their habit in discharging waste and raising knowledge in waste management They should be trained how to classify waste such as general waste, metal waste, hazardous waste and recyclable waste For example: 34 - The metal waste such as aluminum foil, broken cuticle nippers/ nail clippers and razors should be classified into metal waste and put in a separate bin - The hazardous waste which contains chemical such as polish/ shellac container bottles, cottons ball having acetone, dirty (old nail color removed) from hoover in manicure station should be disposed in another bin and the bin need to be labeled - Plastic bag, rubber gloves, masks and the others can be contained in the general waste bin - Recyclable waste such as bottles, carton… needs to be continuously classified like what the nail technicians have done The nail technicians can also change their habit in reusing the good products, using just enough necessary material, cutting of the bottles by using glass cup… in order to reduce waste Waste water might be reduced by minimizing the water usage such as trying to dry pedicure, washing equipment not under the running water, only washing wiper when the washing machine has been full… In overall, once the nail salon workers have been aware of waste management, they need to build their new habit and keep trying to that in the future 5.2 Conclusion As shown in the reports, the nail salons in South Australia were classified into small and big salon with the similarities and differences All nail salons have the similar number of supplying products However, in term of scale, the big salons are an establishment built in the area of 70-100 m2 and run by 7-9 nail technicians while the small salons have just 45-50 m2 area and 4-5 workers In its activities, nail salons discharge a lot of waste such as plastic bag, rubber glove, aluminum foil… and especially waste water However, the wastes in nail salon were not 35 classified correctly because of the worker’s knowledge and the owner’s rules on the waste classification In conclusion, the author has explained why the thesis was conducted by reviewing the previous report and indicating which topic has not been discussed or researched With the title “Waste and waste management in nail salons in Australia, case studies in Adelaide, South Australia”, the study has given the variety information such as the overview of nail salon and the waste management in nail salon in Australia Along the report, the author has shown that the amount of waste discharged and water usage in salon every day is influenced directly by the number of customers and customer’s characteristic Besides that, the nail salon workers are the main factors who play the most important role in waste management through their awareness Although the study has brought some new findings, its limitations still exist The findings from this report could be considered to be the basis for the further studies The next researches of this study can focus on more solutions for waste management in nail salon and recommendations for reducing waste in order to achieve sustainable nail salons 36 REFERENCES Quach T; Kim N; Phuong A; Linda O; Cathyn F; Peggy R (March 1, 2008) "A Preliminary Survey of Vietnamese Nail Salon Workers in Alameda County, 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from: 37 http://www.aocd.org/skin/dermatologic_diseases/warts.html (accessed on 17/09/2019) Stay Healthy and Safe While Giving Manicures and Pedicures https://www.osha.gov/Publications/3542nail-salon-workers-guide.pdf (accessed on 18/09/2019) Ted (2014) “Reducing air pollution from nail salons” Retrieved from: http://www.atmospure.net/salons-spas/from-the-epa-reducing-air-pollution-fromnail-salons/ (accessed on 20/09/2019) “There are five types of waste, you know them all?” (2016) Retrieved from: https://4waste.com.au/rubbish-removal/5-types-waste-know/ 20/09/2019) 38 (accessed on ... more in the summer 30 4.3 Waste management Waste classification and treatment in nail salon According to the interviews, wastes in nail salons are classified by the workers into recyclable waste, ... general waste in one week, so the nail salon owners either store garbage in salon to wait for disposing in the next week or discharge waste in the public bins Waste water in nail salon includes... force in waste classification and management to the workers The workers can reduce waste by changing their habit in discharging waste and raising knowledge in waste management They should be trained