Don't hang onto your hangers, pleads dry-cleaning firm

A DRY-cleaning company is appealing for customers not to hang onto their plastic coat hangers lurking in the depths of their wardrobes. As part of a recycling drive Johnson Cleaners in Church Green, Harpenden, has launched a Hand Back Your Hangers campa

A DRY-cleaning company is appealing for customers not to hang onto their plastic coat hangers lurking in the depths of their wardrobes.

As part of a recycling drive Johnson Cleaners in Church Green, Harpenden, has launched a "Hand Back Your Hangers" campaign calling for local residents to return the company's distinctive yellow hangers.

The campaign is part of a strategy to drastically reduce the number of yellow Johnson Cleaners hangers in circulation over the next six months and to reduce the amount of plastic the company uses.

Research shows that there could be up to three-million coat hangers in UK homes and 18 per cent of them are never used. As a result almost 100 million are thrown out and sent straight to landfill each year.

Johnson regional manager Martin Palman said: "We use thousands of coat hangers in our Herts stores every year and as our business expands, this figure will continue to rise. 'Hand Back Your Hangers' is our way of reducing the huge number of unused yellow hangers in homes across the county and breathing new life into them.

Any yellow Johnson hangers can be returned to the special recycling point at the store.

A historical fact...

* The coat hanger was invented in 1903 by Albert J. Parkhouse from

Michigan in the USA. He worked at a wire and novelty company and after tiring of the lack of hooks on which to hang his coat, he bent some wire into two oval shapes and twisted the ends together to form a hook. Unfortunately his employer pipped him to the post to get the legal patent and he never got a penny for his inspirational creation.