Cleaner production applied at beauty salon: considerations and opportunities

Abstract

Beauty salons generate hazardous waste from their services, being characterized as a potentially polluting activity, in which this waste does not receive its deserved attention from the current environmental legislation. Cleaner Production (CP) stands out as an efficient program capable of acting in the prevention of pollution generated by processes, products, and/or services. In this context, this paper sought to analyze possible CP actions in a beauty salon located in the city of Osório, in the north coast of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Therefore, the methodology used for the development of this study was based in the material of the Centro Nacional de Tecnologias Limpas[1] (CNTL), which presents the main five steps for the implementation of a Cleaner Production Program. This work consisted of defining the main services offered in a beauty salon that are responsible for generating significant environmental impacts and in carrying out a qualitative-quantitative environmental evaluation of these services, in order to list possible improvements for the enterprise, aiming, as a priority, to reduce the waste of raw material, water, and energy, the emission of effluents with a high chemical load, and waste disposal. From the data collected, the CP program offered eight possibilities of improvement in the services provided, highlighting the replacement of a product with carcinogenic potential for another that offers a lower health risk, as well as a lower cost to the enterprise. Additionally, environmental indicators were developed to stimulate and visualize the reduction in water and electricity consumption and the generation of hazardous waste and effluent, with the goal of reducing 10% of these indicators when compared to the values generated before the implementation of the Program. Given the above, it is possible to assert that Cleaner Production was efficient in finding alternatives that seek to avoid the generation of potentially polluting waste and effluent in the beauty salon.[1] Em tradução livre: Centro Nacional Brasileiro de Tecnologias Limpas.