The other day I was watching a news program, when I seen this new item. The concept is simple. Replacing those metal hangers that you get from the dry cleaner. You know the hangers that tend to accumulate until you decide to throw them away and fill the land fill with more non-biodegradable material. These new hangers are made from recycled paper. And since they are paper, cardboard to be exact, they can be reused or recycled. Something I did with the metal hangers anyway (recycle that is).
The idea for the company--which makes a dry cleaner hanger made entirely from recycled paper--came after founder and Chief Operating Officer J.D. Schulman's mother asked him to throw away a bunch of old wire hangers. He put them in the garbage, the hangers poked a hole in the bag, and gravy dripped on her white carpet when Schulman took the garbage out, says HangerNetwork CEO Bob Kantor.
The result was the EcoHanger, a sturdy replacement for wire hangers that can be folded and tossed into the ordinary household recycling bin. Because they biodegrade relatively quickly, the hanger conceivably could displace significant amounts of difficult-to-dispose-of garbage every year.
- CNET
Hanger Network does have a seasoned exec in charge. CEO Rob Kantor says he was President of two global billion dollar advertising agencies as well as Founder and Chairman of his agency, Rotter Kantor. He was President of Publicis for five years. Why he wants to focus on hangers in his golden years is beyond me. The company was founded in 2004 as a partnership between Cleaner's Supply , Paradigm Packaging (a subsidiary of The Standard Group) and Texas Pacific Group's Altivity Packaging.
It takes 40 inches of wire to make one hanger . That equals 2.2 million miles a year . Imported wire hangers could wrap around the earth 88 times 3.5 billion wire hangers go into U.S. landfills every year where they just sit
According to the Hanger Network website, the EcoHanger is made from 34-point paperboard (a relatively thick paper) that is folded onto itself. The hanger is then glued and laminated for extra strength. In the end, the hanger is strong enough to hold clothes, but remains flexible.
National advertisers pay HangerNetwork (www.hangernetwork.com) to put ads on the hangers, which then stare consumers in the face when they get dressed in the morning.
Hanger Network distributes EcoHangers free to tens of thousands of dry cleaners in the U.S. They are paid for by companies who have advertisements printed on the hangers. The product is said to be good for the environment and good for advertisers, as they get uninterrupted access to consumers during their morning routine, which can last for up to several weeks.
This is a dumb idea if you buy cardboard hangers to reduce landfill and to be eco-friendly. If they are cheaper to buy than the wire hangers, then this a great idea for drycleaners.
ReplyDeleteI don't have enough faith to be a believer in enviromental crisis' and coming environmental catastrophes. I think earthday is a dumb idea, too. It borders on earth worship. The enviromental movement has been for a long time a religion. You have a god which is the earth and nature,and you have sin which is polluting. Of course you also have salvation which is recycling. Give me a break (sigh). Thirty years from now other generations will laugh at some of the absurdities of it all. They will laugh at some of the fads like using plastic bags over paper bags because it will save trees. The idea of the hybrid car in it in present form, will seem silly. Since it is suppose to reduce emissions because it uses electricity and gas. Sounds good, until you think about the process of producing electricity and the pollution that is involved that.
See, I dont think pollution is a bad thing if you intend to minimize it, while you are producing good, life-saving products like electricity for society. Refrigeration saves lives. Electricity is need to purify water and pump it to the cities. Purifying water saves lives, too. In third world countries many people get sick or die because of a lack of those two things that electricity gives us.
Thanks for posting the article. It provoked thought. Very interesting stuff.
For those in north west London, my company www.thebedmakers.com provides dry cleaning on luxury wooden hangers, which are then recycled each visit.
ReplyDeleteNot only do the clothes sit better on the hanger, they look better in your closet and are more eco-friendly than even paper hangers.
In addition customers can choose to receive their clothes without the plastic wrapping.
www.thebedmakers.com