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Print articleA special collection bin will be introduced in stores to encourage customers to leave behind unwanted coat hangers. The supermarket promises to reuse or recycle them all.
Clothing Technical Manager, Alan Wragg, who masterminded the scheme said:
"Last year, we estimate that our customers took home over 150 million Tesco hangers. Although many of these will have been put to good use, we feared that a significant number were ending up in the bin.
By letting our customers know that we will send their unwanted hangers back to our suppliers, we estimate that over 1,000 tonnes of plastic will be spared from landfill in the first year alone."
Having successfully tested the idea in 5 Tesco stores, the supermarket will roll out a national collection scheme.
The hangers will be returned to Tesco's suppliers in Asia in containers that would otherwise be travelling empty. They will then be reused and any damaged hangers will be ground down and recycled into new hangers.
To ensure all hangers are sturdy enough to be reused, Tesco have worked with their hanger manufacturers to design a brand new adjustable model: instead of using metal, the hook is made of a special polycarbonate plastic that can handle greater stress, meaning it will last longer.
Over the past year, the supermarket has been looking for innovative ways to reduce the amount of packaging waste it creates. This initiative will contribute to Tesco's target of cutting the packaging on its products by 25% by 2010.
How the new units will look in store:
Hanger facts:
- In 1906 Meyer May, a men's clothier from Michigan, became the first retailer to display his wares on his wishbone-inspired hangers;
- In 1932 Schuyler C. Hulett patented an improved design, which used cardboard tubes mounted on the upper and lower parts of the wire to prevent wrinkles;
- "No wire hangers ever!" is a quote from the 1981 film, Mommie Dearest, which starred Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford;
- Clothes hangers have now become collectable (especially those with a famous company or event advertised across the front). For example, a 1950 Butlins hanger sold for £10.10 in October 2006 within Collecticus magazine.
