In all honesty, the idea of yet another ad in my face makes me cringe a little bit, but I have to hand it to the makers of the EcoHanger, that they’re onto a pretty neat idea – provide dry cleaners with free hangers to replace the rather wasteful metal hangers they always send you home with. The catch – the hangers have advertisements on them. They’re also made of biodegradable recycled paper. Here’s the site.
Of course, I don’t see anywhere on their site that mentions that 100% recycled includes post consumer content – the only real definition of recycled. There’s also not much explanation of exactly what the ink in the ads is made of. And with a useful shelf life of just 8 weeks, they won’t be replacing real hangers any time soon. But still, probably a better option than the wire version. If only looking at those ads would reduce my bill… hmm..
via springwise, thx Jamie!
“EcoHangars” Improve EcoEffectiveness of DryCleaning
By Nick Aster | February 16th, 2007 
5 Comments
3P's Most Popular Posts
What's Hot:
Sponsors
Where We’re Going
Nov 19, 09
San Jose: The Tech Awards
Dec 2, 09
Bard CEP National Climate Seminar: Hon. Ed Markey Sponsor event
Dec 16, 09
Bard CEP National Climate Seminar: Eban Goodstein, Live from Copenhagen Sponsor event
Partners
Comments
February 16, 2007 at 18:10 pm PST | Doug Snodgrass writes:
Not a bad start, but I would really be happy to see more eco-friendly dry cleaners.
February 17, 2007 at 5:32 am PST | JD Schulman writes:
Great post. EcoHangers are made with vegetable dies and are almost 100% post consumer content. The shelf life is MUCH longer than 8 weeks – that’s just advertising shelf life. In reality, they last years in your closet. – Hanger Network
March 02, 2007 at 8:31 am PST | Angela Leontis writes:
Just when I was about to send this to everyone I know – including Greener Cleaners here in Chicago – with clever subject title “no wire hangers!” they lost me:
“And those plants conform to OSHA & EPA carbon emission standards as well as wastewater discharge standards.”
Ah, there are no OSHA or EPA carbon emission standards. Rule #1 of introducing an “eco-product”: don’t greenwash. This crowd is pretty savvy.
March 17, 2007 at 14:24 pm PDT | Karen writes:
Hmmm…
This just gave me a flashback to a dry cleaning incident which happened to me 3-4 years ago. While living in North Carolina I was taking my dry cleaning to the supposedly eco-conscious CO2 dry cleaner, Hangers Cleaners (http://www.hangerskc.com/).
As a eco-minded power-suit wearing consumer, I ALWAYS brought my hangers back. Normally, they’d gladly take them, but one day the guy at the counter refused saying that they could no longer take hangers back because the “company that they paid to take hangers away was no longer in that business”. HUH???!!!
Why on earth would a dry cleaning company PAY someone else to take a away hangers that they can use? Moreover, why would a company which specifically targets eco-minded consumers nix their hanger takeback program regardless of the hoops that they may have to jump through to do it??
I wrote the company headquarters about this, but I never received a reply. Hmmm…
I also find it amusing to contrast this with the summer that I spent in Thailand – where the cleaners DEMANDED not only the hangers back, but also the thick plastic that they’d cover my clothes in. Not because of any sort of eco-mindedness – but because it saved them money!
October 15, 2008 at 11:58 am PDT | Roscoe Marve writes:
Great idea! How we get Ecohangars for the home?