Is recycling wire hangers a valuable sustainability goal? As the top-rated commercial laundry in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, we think so!
It is estimated that the dry cleaning industry alone uses 3.5 billion metal hangers, the equivalent of 200 million pounds of steel. That’s enough steel to make 60,000 automobiles! And this does not even include the number of hangers used by commercial laundry facilities. Although steel in general is widely recycled, wire hangers are still not accepted by many recyclers because the process is not cost effective for the amount of steel that can be reclaimed from a single hanger. To further complicate this issue, the hanger shape frequently catches in the recycling equipment.
So what has been happening to all these hangers over the years? They wind up in landfills, where it takes more than 100 years for them to decompose.
As the leading ecofriendly linen service in New England, Crown has made a serious and ongoing commitment to reduce this strain on our environment and our community’s landfills. Every day, Crown service representatives gather wire hangers from customers on their routes and return them to our facility where they are cleaned and reused. This not only prevents unnecessary waste from making its way into landfills, but helps eliminate new hanger production by reusing perfectly good materials.
Consumers and businesses across the country are joining forces to improve our environment by Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling. You can learn more about how you can help by visiting Earth911.com. If you’re a business in Boston or Worcester, Nashua or Providence, and you care about the New England environment, partner with us to be ecofriendly. We care about the environment, and we hope you do, too!