apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Didn't I just see this exact post? Bottom line, everyone should bring their hangers back to the drycleaners to reuse. And if your drycleaner won't take them, get a new drycleaner.

? I use them (surprised that wasn't an option)

My boyfriend worked in a drycleaners when he was in high school. He said that they accepted the hangers to "recycle" and threw them in the dumpster.
I always heard they did the same thing with the plastic bags at grocery stores.
I would love to hear otherwise.

I don't dryclean any more. I don't buy anything that needs to really needs to be drycleaned (a few things say dryclean, but I wash them anyway...I've destroyed a couple of things, but made up for it in drycleaning savings).

they just did a story on this on NPR—saying that across the country, with rising prices on wire hangers, dry cleaners DO want them back now. try taking them back in again.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90259986&ft=2&f=1095

How strange that your dry cleaner rejected the hangers. I switched from a traditional (albeit cheaper) dry cleaning service to the environmentally friendly Cleaner By Nature (there are a few locations in the L.A. area). Both cleaners gladly accepted my hangers. The traditional cleaners seemed pleased that I brought them back. They were a smaller mom and pops type place so perhaps they appreciated the thrifty gesture. The new place accepts all hangers and also takes back the plastic bags that cover the clothes. I hope that's an option that more cleaners will adopt.

lol Jillian, my thoughts exactly. ("uh, I... use them?")

Perfect Cleaners in Los Angeles area has a couple locations and they accept hangers and plastic and the paper too. They better not be throwing them out!
This has me thinking of possible other uses...I used to have the whole "I said no wire hangers" phobia, but I saw them in a little wardrobe at a beach house with silky tops and slips and it looked divine!

Every couple months I take them back to the dry cleaners and every time I do the woman at the front laments that most people are too lazy to bring them back. I'm sure some people use them, but we would have far too many to use if we kept them all over the years.

My drycleaner takes them back.

I wish I could forgo dry cleaning but I work for an old school institution. We don't even do casual Fridays, let alone business casual. If you’re a guy, if it's not dry cleaned or you didn't spend your evening meticulously ironing it, don't bother wearing it to work. But I digress.

I have boxes of wire hangers. I don't use them because outside of my the dry cleaning, I fold the bulk of my clothing. Frankly I didn't know what to do with them! I'll have to check if I can recycle them with my dry cleaner. Thanks for the great ideas and comments! Hopefully they don't say they recycle them, then chuck 'em in a dumpster out back.

I use them.

My local dry cleaner used to not want hangers back because they were only a few cents and often needed to be tossed out because they weren't in perfect, reusable condition. Recently Congress put a tariff on the cheap wire hangers that were being imported from China, so prices have suddenly tripled and most any dry cleaner will gladly take them back now.

Contrary to popular belief, you are typically NOT allowed to recycle wire hangers in your residential blue bin. aluminum and tin, yes; steel, no. Wire hangers are made out of steel.

When my cleaners wouldn't take them back, I would collect a stash of them in the corner of the closet and bring them to a nearby clothes thrift shop, but admit to sometimes tossing them in the trash out of laziness now and then. Fortunately, i don't send many shirts to the cleaners anymore, so it's not that big an issue for me.

There's a for-profit startup called HangerNetwork that "gives" cleaners 100% recycled (and recyclable) cardboard hangers with advertising on them. Rumor has it that they're expanding fast and coming to S.F. soon. I have mixed feelings about advertising-driven, green business models, but Paris' Vélib' bike program has begun to change my views on that.

They are great for making cloches for garden plants, or potted plants. If you have a row of seedlings and want to give them a bit of shelter, you straighten out the hook and pull the hanging part into a triangle then attach plastic to the wire round the triangle with clip-on pegs. Push the straightened out hook into the soil.

You can also use the hanger, straightened out, to hook down and hold branches of roses down so you get buds all along the branch. Sorry, I've no photos.