post lockdown

♦ FRENCH NEWS

The human hair cleaning the oceans

One enterprising hairdresser in southern France is hoping to put the country's leftover locks to work in the fight against sea pollution. The innova tive recycling scheme is the work of Thierry Gras, founder of Coiffeurs Justes - Fair Hairdressers - which now has 40 tonnes of hu man hair at its warehouse in Brignoles, near Mar seille, waiting to be processed.

The hair is stuffed into nylon stockings which are then floated in the sea to mop up oil pollution. “Hair is lipophilic, which means it absorbs fats and hydro carbons,” explained Gras. After a successful trial in the nearby port of Cava laire-sur-Mer, the foundation is now waiting for the green light from labour in spectors and anti-pollution officials before beginning large-scale production of the tubes later this year.

Despite the fact that hair can also be used as ferti liser, insulation material, concrete reinforcement or in water filtration, Gras was shocked to discover when he became a hair dresser that there was no established recycling facil ity for hair waste. He subsequently came up with the idea of creating hair-filled oil absorbers, and in 2015 founded his association. Today he has 3,300 hair

coiffeurs-justes.fr salons contributing to the scheme. At the Brignoles ware house thousands of paper bags, each containing two kilograms of clippings, have been collected from participating hairdress ers from all over France, Germany, Belgium and

Luxembourg. The bags are then sent to another site a few streets away, where formerly unemployed peo ple and school dropouts are paid to make the absorbent tubes. Gras plans to rein vest half of the sale price of the tubes in the employ ment centre.

The forearm-length tubes will be sold for €9 each and can absorb up to eight times their own weight in oil. With the average hair dresser generating 29 kilograms of hair a year - most of which currently ends up in the bin - the scheme is a cheap and efficient way of turning a natural waste product into one that can help fight pollution.

“The tubes can be used in case of a serious oil spill, such as the one in Mauritius recently, but the idea here is to remove mi cro-pollution on a continuous basis,” Gras explained. In Cavalaire, a dozen tubes are already in use, serving as a pilot for the project, and Philippe Leonelli, the mayor of the seaside town and CEO of its port, is happy to have a new meth od for soaking up the oil leaked from the engines of some 1,100 boats docked in the port. “The traditional method uses large sponges made from polymer, prod ucts that are not reusable and which we discard after use,” the mayor said. The hair tubes are washable and can be reused as many as ten times. “We are all in search of reusable methods so as not to overburden our territory and our land.”

Several river and ocean ports in France have al ready shown an interest in purchasing the tubes. ■

Growing anger over empty food packaging

Aconsumer group has accused seven major brands of “food fraud” over the amount of empty space within their packaging. The European NGO Foodwatch said products made by Lipton, Léa Nature, Sojasun, Monoprix, Barilla, Carrefour and Leclerc were “full of nothing” and intended to dupe customers into thinking they were buying more food than was actually there.

Monoprix came under specific fire for its spice jars, which use a large label at the top to hide the fact that they are more than one quarter empty. “It’s all about the judicious positioning of the label and the opacity of the cap,” Foodwatch said in its report, which also highlights packets of cereals and quinoa only 40% filled, or diced salmon whose packaging contained just 32% fish.

“As a consumer, you can imagine yourself in the salmon section. You have all these slices of salmon that do not go to the end of the packaging, but as it is mostly cardboard, you do not see too much,” explained Camille Dorioz, campaign manager of the NGO. “It’s a competition for who can have the largest packaging on the shelf to show his product to the consumer.”

“After complaints from several consumers, we went to check supermarkets and compared

products between them. Almost all the shelves were affected by this excess packaging and these products sold ‘full of emptiness’. Offering useless packaging is not illegal, but it’s time to end these abusive practices.”

The NGO says companies are exploiting a “grey area of regulation”, adding that European law clearly states that packaging and marketing practices must not be deliberately misleading. “We consider oversized packaging to be illegitimate because it is deliberately intended to mislead the consumer.”

In order to highlight the problem and put more pressure on the industry to change their ways, Foodwatch have launched an online petition which will be sent to the CEOs of the companies highlighted in the study. “We're launching this petition not only to force these companies to change their practices, but to alert the manufacturers of all brands that consumers have had enough. It’s not just about misleading customers – who feel they’ve been had after buying a large product with very little contents – but the environmental repercussions are also unacceptable,” Dorioz said.

According to Forbes Insight, as much as 25% of all international freight is empty space inside packaging. That is the equivalent of 60 million empty containers being shipped around the world each year. ■

France loses voice of Asterix and Mickey Mouse

Legendary French actor, comebing. When you're happy, you don't age so dian and voice-over artist Roger quickly.” Carel has died at the age of 93. “Being a voice actor is the opposite of He was arguably the most famous acting. You have to forget what you can do. voice-over artist in French cinema history There is no question, unlike in the theatre and will be well remembered as the voice or the cinema, of adapting a role to your of Asterix the Gaul and Mickey Mouse as measure. You must honestly reproduce the well as Star Wars’ C-3PO, Winnie the Pooh, work of another. I have always treated it Kermit the Frog and Kaa from the Jungle like a game.” Book. For those of a certain age, he was Carel was undoubtedly the biggest name also the French voice of Benny Hill. in French dubbing history and with the rise

While most English speakers will watch of streaming platforms and changing view relatively few films or programmes in a ing habits, many believe his fame will never foreign language, dubbing remains a huge be eclipsed. Following a change in the law part of the industry internationally. The top in 1949 which required any film released voice-over artists will typically be used to in French cinemas to be dubbed in studios voice the same actor in different films and located in France, an industry was born. In can build a following in their own right and the modern world, however, many people achieve significant popularity. watch films online and the rise of streaming

Carel began his career in theatre and raservices such as Netflix has led to a sig dio dramas, where his unique voice and nificant move towards subtitling rather than mischievous tone quickly led to success. dubbing. His talents opened the door to the busi The sheer volume of international content ness of dubbing, the work he became best now available online makes dubbing a slow known for and he would go on to work as a voice-over artist well into his eight ies. “My magic potion recipe for staying young is this marvellous job that has kept me going... marvellously,” he said when finally retiring in 2013 after receiving the prestigious Henri-Langlois Award. “I had the chance to play a lot: theatre, TV, dub and expensive option compared to subti tling, and evidence appears to suggest that the public, particularly the younger genera tions, are becoming more and more used to watching subtitled programmes and films. While the country may never again see an other Roger Carel, his voice will remain iconic to legions of French film fans. ■ credit: Stéphane Cardinale / Corbis