The market
The global market for clothes hangers is estimated at 50 billion units per year, with a market value of $25 billion. The cheapest are wire hangers, which are given away free at dry cleaners. They cost only eight to twelve cents each to manufacture. Of the 3.3 billion used in the United States, some 2.7 billion are imported from China at a cost of $83.6 million, according to the latest figures from 2008. The 30,000 dry cleaning businesses in the United States spend about $6,500 per year, or about 10% of their average revenue, to provide free hangers to customers who consider them an essential part of the cleaning service. Worldwide, an estimated 7.5 billion carbon steel wire hangers end up in landfills, creating a breeding ground for rats, to the point that some cities have banned their free distribution due to the damage caused by disposal sites. The second most common type of hanger is made of plastic, primarily polystyrene and polycarbonate. These often branded hangers are mainly sold through retail outlets. Costing between 15 and 50 cents, these hangers also tend to end up in landfills after a single use, leaching benzene and bisphenol A. It is estimated that 15% of hangers are recycled thanks to the efforts of stores like Zara and Hennes & Mauritz. However, recycling is complex because the plastic is combined with metals and other plastics, making material recovery difficult and expensive. Total global hanger production is estimated to generate 6.5 million tons of CO2. This is equivalent to 1.5 million cars. There are no global leaders in this industry, which remains small-scale and local. The largest company, with estimated sales of $250 million, is Mainetti, a privately held company based in Castelgomberto, Italy, with production facilities in 42 countries worldwide.
Innovation
Over the years, clothes hangers have transformed into veritable chemical repositories. Formaldehyde to combat insects, phthalates for flexibility, azo dyes for color, flame retardants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium VI, and more. Few people realize just how concentrated a chemical mixture is in our wardrobes. While several companies, like MAWA in Pfaffenhofen, Germany, led by Michaela Schenk, have made an effort to eliminate all toxic components, the question remains: what exactly is in them, and how do choices about their contents influence consumers to steer the company toward sustainability while remaining competitive? Hanger4Life offers a strong, indestructible plastic, while EcoHanger is made from 100% recycled paper and recoups its costs through advertising. What could be better than a future-proof business model? Lucio Ventania always aspired to be a social entrepreneur. A Brazilian of African descent, he learned about bamboo from his Chinese neighbor, Master Lu. Without any formal education but inspired by his mentor from the age of ten, he began working with natural fibers in the early 1980s. After successfully offering academic courses on bamboo use, he founded Ateliê Pengala in Belo Horizonte in 1988, providing street children with training in the production of widely available bamboo furniture. His success quickly generated demand from professionals such as architects and engineers to learn the same techniques he shared with the children. In 1996, Lucio created the Brazilian Bamboo Institute and shortly thereafter BAMCRUZ, a multidisciplinary center with actors, doctors, social workers, union members, rural cooperatives, and art schools that provides opportunities for the most disadvantaged members of society. Lucio's vision is to provide a cultural, economic, and environmental platform for bamboo to achieve social development. His dream is to create a bamboo civilization, recognizing that 2.5 billion people on Earth use bamboo in their daily lives, yet almost all consider this wild grass a symbol of their poverty. He conceived the idea of Bambuzerias, a social cooperative that produces and markets eco-friendly products made from bamboo. The first product he envisioned mass-producing in 2000 was the clothes hanger.
The first cash flow
In 2001, Lucio learned about the challenges facing the town of Cajueiro in the northeastern Brazilian state of Alagoas. This area, once home to an ancient rainforest, was destroyed in the early 1960s to make way for sugarcane farms. In 1990, this region produced 85% of all of Brazil's sugarcane. Subsequently, the pressure of a globalized market forced the introduction of mechanization and automation in agriculture and sugarcane harvesting, reducing the demand for labor by nearly two-thirds. Confronted with the significant social problem of unemployed farmworkers, he developed an integrated plan with the local population, encompassing everything from bamboo cultivation to the marketing of finished products. He proposed using bamboo to regenerate the degraded soil. The sugar cane barons offered dry, unproductive areas for planting 10,000 stalks of Phyllostachys viridis, a slender local variety only 1.5 cm wide that could be harvested quickly. Within six months of launching the project, Lucio had trained 80 former laborers to produce 5,000 coat hangers a month. These hangers are made of bamboo, without glue or metal fittings, using only readily available materials. The cardboard packaging for these designer hangers is made from leftover sugar cane bagasse from the local mill, providing work for the unemployed population. In a community characterized by high unemployment, illiteracy, and infant mortality, the workers earned $120 as members of the cooperative in their first month. This has provided a livelihood for families, while the activities of planting, harvesting, processing bamboo, and selling coat hangers generate a surplus that allows for continued investment in expanding production with self-generated cash flow. Several design awards, including Casa Planeta, have helped create sustained demand for these eco-friendly products from the cooperative, now known as Bambuzeria Capricho. This initiative goes beyond job creation; it builds social capital.
The opportunity
Demand continued to grow. The state of Alagoas now has three production centers, each earning 10 to 15 Cruzeiros ($6 to $9) per hanger, and thanks to an effective marketing and distribution campaign, per worker's income reaches just under $500—a fortune for any worker in Brazil. This income uplifts the community, provides employment for marginalized citizens, and revitalizes the regeneration of the Atlantic rainforest by planting these precursors of biodiversity, offering an alternative to sugarcane cultivation. The product line has expanded from hangers to furniture and garden materials. Lucio decided that these opportunities should extend to Brazilians of African descent, unemployed rural day laborers, street children, and citizens with special needs. This approach, which combines social, cultural, ecological, and economic development, is a good example of how the Blue Economy can contribute to new social development while putting nature back on its co-evolutionary path. The ZERI Brazil Foundation has supported Lucio since 2000, when he visited the ZERI Bamboo Pavilion at the Hanover World Expo. Since 2012, Lucio has offered training to create his concept of a bamboo civilization, encompassing human development, work ethic, social integration, healthcare, and entrepreneurship, in more than 30 communities in Brazil. As of the latest count, this has led to the creation of five Bambuzerias (bamboo workshops) in the form of cooperatives and a large number of independent artisans producing some 25,000 coat hangers per month. The coat hanger has become a symbolic product, and many others could enter the market by drawing inspiration from this successful business model, which has proven itself over more than a decade. Lucio believes the bamboo era is only just beginning, as bamboo contains six times more cellulose than pine, the preferred paper source for Scandinavian and North American manufacturers. Based on his extensive experience in interior and exterior design, he believes the opportunity to create a bamboo culture is only a matter of years away. Perhaps the only thing missing is more entrepreneurs who don't distinguish between social and real business ventures. The blue economy only promotes entrepreneurs who engage in genuine, socially and ecologically responsible businesses. And Lucio Ventania is a prime example to follow.
