Do you know whether plastic hangers are recyclable?

Suppose you’ve ever wondered what to do with your excess coat hangers. In that case, you may have asked Google if they are recyclable, perhaps hoping for a simple “yes, just pop them in your recycling bin”, but it’s more likely Google’s answer was a bit more “possibly, maybe, it depends” than you were hoping for.

The simple answer is that some plastic hangers are recyclable, while others aren’t; some recycling centres accept them, and some don’t. This causes a problem, as many plastic hangers that could be recycled end up in landfills, while others that can’t be recycled take a detour to the recycling plant before reaching a landfill. It’s estimated that plastic of this kind in landfills can take up to 1,000 years to break down, so recycling wherever possible is essential if we don’t want to run out of land to fill anytime soon.

So, how do you know if you can recycle your plastic hangers?

It depends on the type of material used in the hangers initially. Solid plastic hangers are generally made from one of two plastic resins, polypropylene (PP) or polystyrene (PS). If this is the only material used in the production of the hangers, i.e., there are no metal or other materials included, the hangers will be, in theory, recyclable.

Your plastic hangers should be marked with a RIC code to identify the type of plastic resin they’re made from.

Source: http://www.recycle.umich.edu

The difficulty for the recycling plants is knowing which resin the hangers are made from and having the facilities to sort them by resin type, as once different resins are mixed, the material becomes unusable.

If the plastic hanger also has metal components, like the type you generally find in clothing stores, it’s less likely they’ll be recyclable, but if you remove the metal parts first, this may make them acceptable.

The best course of action if you’d like to recycle your plastic hangers is to get in touch with your local council’s recycling team, tell them what the RIC code is on your hangers, and they should be able to tell you if they can accept them. You can find your local recycling team’s details here.

What to do with them if they can’t be recycled

If your local recycling service is not yet set up to accept plastic hangers, there are still options to prevent them from ending up in landfill sites.

1. Check with your local charity shop. They’ll likely be more than happy to take them off your hands.
2. Please drop them off at the local dry cleaners. It’s possible that some of your hangers originated from there in the first place, and most dry cleaners will be happy to reuse them.
3. Keep some of them. If you’ve got some extra hangers in your wardrobe, next time you buy something new, and they ask you if you want the hanger, you can confidently say no.
   

Whatever you decide to do with your plastic coat hangers, hopefully, there are enough options available to prevent them from ending up in a landfill.

Do you have any ideas we haven’t thought of to prevent plastic coat hangers from ending up in landfill sites? We’d love to hear your ideas – the more creative, the better! Let us know below.