Ecohair: recycled hair fertilizer

One of the ecological problems the world is facing today is inadequate amount of waste recycling and waste pollution.

Hair is characterized by moderate environmental hazard as decomposition period takes 50 years. Hair tends to move through dump sites, mixes with other waste, and increases the risk of fire in the dump site. Open dumps of hair create hair dust and can result in respiratory tract infections and tuberculosis.

We contacted local hairdressers, collected hair waste from them and boiled it in water at a high temperature until water evaporated. Then we used the resulting powder as soil fertilizer. We tested it and the plants that were added ecohair fertilizer grew faster and had more leaves.

By producing fertilizer from recycled human hair we are building a more affordable, accessible and environmentally friendly solution anyone can use for cultivation of plants.

According to World Bank, there are 683 million tonnes of waste worldwide and each person produces about 270 kilograms of waste annually. Most of the waste is recyclable, especially glass, paper and plastic. But what about human hair?

According to Rostechnadzor, biological  waste, including hair belongs to 4th level of danger, which is characterized by moderate environmental hazard as decomposition period takes 50 years. Hair moves through dump sites, mixes with other waste, and increases the risk of fire on the dump site (Vtorothody.ru). Open dumps of hair create hair dust and whenever breathed in, can result in respiratory tract infections and tuberculosis (Journal of Waste Management).

There have been attempts to recycle or decompose hair with the help of chemical or burning. However, these methods created additional adverse impact on the environment. Burning hair produces toxic gases as ammonia and sulphur dioxide. In India Department of Agricultural Microbiology tried to create liquid fertilizer from hair (The Hindu), but a lot of chemicals were used to make such liquid fertilizer and in the end even more chemicals were used to remove the most harmful chemicals from the end product. Our method is much more eco friendly and cheaper!

Lives of farmers and people in cities can be improved if they find out about affordable and eco-friendly way of producing fertilizer at home, which we are proposing. According to World Food Program, approximately 113 million people in 53 countries in the world in 2018 experienced severe food shortages. Nearly two thirds of the total number of people experiencing severe hunger live in 8 countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. With so much food shortage in the world, ecohair fertilizer become a solution for those who cannot afford other fertilizers that cost money. With the help ecohair fertilizers famers and people in the cities will be able to produce more food and of better quality. According to our experiments, plants that grow faster and are bigger in size when ecohair fertilizer is added to soil. Nitrogen-rich fertilizers are especially great for growing potatoes, tomatoes, beetroots, cucumbers, berries such as grapes, strawberries, as well as flowers such as tulips and roses (Udobreniya.info).  

We want to share a method using which farmers and city people may grow their food or other plants using human hair fertilizer.

According to famous hair product company Schwarzkopf, 80% of human hair is keratin (protein), 10-15% water, 5-10% lipids and other micro elements like calcium, magnesium, sulfur, etc. These micro elements are good soil fertilizers and can be used for plant growth. Therefore, fertilizer made of hair may contain 9000 ppm (1·10−6) of nitrogen,  and other micro elements such as potassium, phosphor, calcium, magnesium and sulfur (mir24.tv). By making fertilizer from hair we are building a more affordable, accessible and environmentally friendly solution for the cultivation of plants and thus reduce the harm for the environment.

We contacted local hairdressers in order to know how much hair are they throw out every day and how are they utilized it. According to our survey and researches, Aktau city has about 400 hair salons barber shops combined. On average one hair salon or barbershop collects 6.61 pound of hair per day. So, we will receive about 661 pounds hair per day and 19 800 pounds hair per month if we work with 100 hair salons and barbershops at the beginning. We then collected hair waste and boiled it in water at a high temperature until water evaporated. Then the resulting dry hair was turned into powder. After that, we used the powder as soil fertilizer. We had four identical plant seeds. To the first pot we added the boiled hair fertilizer, to the second pot we added boiled hair fertilizer that was mixed with water, to the third we added a regular fertilizer bought at a plant store and to the fourth we did not add any fertilizers. Results from experiment.

There have been attempts to recycle or decompose hair with the help of chemical or burning. However, these methods created additional adverse impact on the environment. Burning hair produces toxic gases as ammonia and sulphur dioxide. In India Department of Agricultural Microbiology tried to create liquid fertilizer from hair (The Hindu), but a lot of chemicals were used to make such liquid fertilizer and in the end even more chemicals were used to remove the most harmful chemicals from the end product. Our method is boiling, which is much more affordable, accessible and environmentally friendly. Our method is new, therefore it is innovative.

Ecohair is made by boiling hair waste at high temperature. Mechanism of producing hair fertilizer is simple. After collecting hair waste from local barbershops, hair is boiled at high temperature until water evaporates. From this process we receive dried hair that can be turned into power. This hair fertilizer contains high percentage of microelements, which are important for growth of plants, like nitrogens, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium. We have used it in an experiment to grow rose bushes. We observed that that the rose bush that was treated with our hair fertilizer grew faster and had more leaves on it than the one without a fertilizer. As our solution is just a concept, the hair fertilizer was made only in a small quantities (just for the experiments), therefore our goal is to obtain funds and experiment more with this hair fertilizer. 

The problem we are trying to solve is inadequate amount of waste recycling and waste pollution. The waste product we chose for recycling is hair. Hair takes 50 years to decompose and may clog sewage systems or turn into dust and then cause respiratory tract infections. Our solution addresses the problem directly because one of the things we do is we collect hair from barbershops and hair salons before it reaches dumpsters. In the future we would like to collect hair from all hair salons in order to recycle all the hair in Aktau, Kazakhstan. If we consider our business model through the lens of Theory of Change, then the main activities shall include: working with hair salons and barbershops to raise awareness about the need to recycle hair and offer them the service of collecting hair waste on a weekly or biweekly basis. We must have a building a large boiling machine, large grinding machine, and staff to make this recycling process possible. The output - our eco-friendly hair fertilizer - can be sold to local farmers. We may also offer the fertilizer to hairs salons and barbershops as an incentive to participate in our recycling program. As a result, in the short-term we will end up with producing ecohair fertilizer for local community and in the long-term we will build a community that is environmentally conscious about waste products and their impact on the nature and we will have less hair waste in dumpsters.     

Currently we are working with a few barbershops and hair salons. At the moment there are 355 hair salons and 51 barbershops in the county of Aktau with the population of more than 180 thousand people. Ideally we would like to be able to serve the whole county within 5-year period. Therefore, in one year we would like to cover at least 20% of all salons and barbershops and by the end of the fifth year we would like to work with all of them. Our activities and the result of our work will also indirectly serve everyone in the community as people will have less polluted landfills. 

We are planning to increase the efficiency of our hair fertilizer by conducting different experiments. It will help to increase quality and quantity of the farmer’s harvest. Furthermore, our team wants to enlarge the collecting scale of hair waste and within five years our team want to associate with world ecological organizations to be able to fine barber shops for throwing hair to dumps or incorrect utilizes them. In this way, we can reduce the spreading of hair in dumps and their negative effect on environment. Within 10 years we would like to spread to other cities of Kazakhstan and be local and international trainers of how to recycle hair with producing mineral-rich hair fertilizer.

As mentioned before, fertilizer is the main product of our work, and we have a five- and ten-year plans. To accomplish the goals, we have to overcome a few barriers. First of all, our solution is just an idea for now. For it to start off the ground we must find believers in our idea, like-minded people in other words, and investors. So, barriers in implementing our solution and spreading it all over the world is no money, no people.

We are planning to apply for funds in different organizations. We have already participated in Caspian Startup 2019, a startup hub for young entrepreneurs and won the Grand Prize of almost one thousand dollars. We must find much more. Along the way we hope to find like minded people who will become part of our team and environmental and social entrepreneurs who will believe in us and help us get off the ground. 

We are two high-school students and a teacher from Kazakhstan, interested in tackling environmental issues locally and worldwide. To be honest, it is our first global work. Even if we a novice team, we have same goals and in the way of achieving aims, we wish to find like-minded people, who are aware about ecological problems and would like to tackle them together with us.

We are environmentally conscious individuals who place an importance in the need to make a social change in thinking of people.

Currently, we do not have any partners.

First we need to raise funds to buy the equipment, rent space, and hire staff. Then we can make money by selling our fertilizer to local farmers and people in the community. The required funds to run and develop the factory’s work process for 3 years is 184 000 dollars. This amount of money will be spent to periodically factory’s equipment service, employee salaries and to production costs.

We found that cost of local company’s ammonium nitrate fertilizer for 2.2 pound is 2.4 dollars. To attract consumers we will sell our fertilizer at  2.1 dollars for a pound. According to our survey and researches, Aktau city has about 400 hair salongs barber shops combined. On average one hair salon or barbershop collects 6.61 pound of hair per day. So, we will receive about 661 pounds hair per day and 19 800 pounds hair per month if we work with 100 hair salons and barbershops at the beginning. However, 30 percent of this weight is lost during processing. Eventually, we will produce 13851 pounds of hair fertilizer per month and 166 212 pounds per year. Respectively, our clear revenue will be 157 000 dollars per year. If we calculate separated money by 40 percent to us and 60 percent to investors, people who invest 184 000 dollars, Investors will earn 96 000 dollars each year. Thus, clear revenue of investors is 104 000 dollars in 3 years.

For now the barriers of our project are: lack of like-minded people, who would believe and support our idea, lack of funds and lack of expertise. Therefore, MIT Solve can partially help us with raising funds, or be the platform where we can connect with like-minded people, hopefully the ones who have expertise in growing environmentally driven business. A lot of investors are looking for interesting project on MIT Solve competition, therefore, if we get to the final top we may find what we are looking for. 

Any environmentally driven organizations of the kind that we are trying to build will be of help. We need mentors to guide us in building a product out of a concept as we are just a group of two high-school students and a teacher without entrepreneurial background such as https://solve.mit.edu/challenges/circular-economy/solutions/10047

If we won GM Prize of $50,000, we would invest the money for continuing our experiments with the fertilizer to derive the best formula for making the most potent and environmentally friendly fertilizer. At the same time we would start working with building a small team of like minded people who would be looking for investors and raise awareness about the issue of hair waste in the city and around the world. Then as the third stage, we would create a minimum viable product and market it in Aktau and regions of Kazakhstan where farmers are in need of fertilizers. We would need to create a good marketing campaign to acquaint our target market with this new type of fertilizer. They must test it to trust it. It will take some time to raise product’s recognizability. Therefore, this money will be enough for a year or so and we would have to have other funds coming up.