The market
The world hanging market is estimated at 50 billion units per year, for a market value of 25 billion dollars. The cheapest are the metal wire hangers that are offered free from dry cleaners. They only cost eight to twelve hundred to make. 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 for 2008. Dry cleaning companies in the United States Spend approximately $ 6,500 per year, or around 10 % of their average turnover, to provide free hangers to customers who consider them an essential element of the cleaning service. Around the world, it is estimated that 7.5 billion hangers in carbon steel finish in landfills, creating a nest of giant rats to the point that certain cities have prohibited free distribution due to damage caused by sites elimination. The second type of the most common hangers is made of plastic, mainly polystyrene and polycarbonate. These often brand devices are delivered mainly through retail points of sale. At a cost of 15 to 50 cents, these hangers also tend to end up in landfill sites after a single use by removing benzene and bisphenol A by leaching. It is estimated that 15 % of hangers are recycled thanks to store efforts like Zara and Hennes & Mauritz. However, recycling is complex since plastic is combined with metals and other plastics, which makes recovery of materials complex and costly. The total production of hangers worldwide is estimated at 6.5 million tonnes of CO2. It is the equivalent of 1.5 million cars. There are no world leaders in this industry that remains on a small scale and local. The largest company, whose sales are estimated at $ 250 million, is Mainetti, a private company based in Castelgomberto, Italy, with production units in 42 countries around the world.
Innovation
The hangers have been transformed over the years into chemical product deposit. Formaldehyde to combat insects, phthalates to give flexibility, azo dyes to offer color, flame delayers, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, lead, mercury, cadmium, chrome VI and more. Few people have achieved how a chemical mixture is concentrated in our wardrobe. While several companies like Mawa from Pfaffenhofen, Germany, led by Michaela Schenk, have made an effort to eliminate all toxic components, the question remains to know what is in it and how the choice of content influences consumers to Orient society towards sustainability while being competitive. The Hanger4Life offers a solid and indestructible plastic, while the Ecohanger is made at 100% recycled paper and is closed with advertising. What can be more and better than a future business model? Lucio Ventania has always been intended to become a social entrepreneur. Brazilian African of native origin, he learned bamboo from his Chinese neighbor Master Lu. Without any formal education but inspired by his mentor from the age of ten, he began to work with natural fibers from the start of 80s. After having successfully offered academic courses on the use of bamboo, he created in 1988 Ateliê Pengala to Belo Horizonte which offers streets of the streets for the production of bamboo furniture widely available. His success quickly aroused a request from professionals such as architects and engineers to learn the same techniques he shared with children. In 1996, Lucio created the Brazilian Institute of Bamboo and shortly after Bamcruz, a multidisciplinary center with actors, doctors, social workers, unions, rural cooperatives and art schools that offer opportunities to more disadvantaged of the company. Lucio's vision is to provide a cultural, economic and environmental platform for bamboo in order to achieve social development. His dream is to create a bamboo civilization knowing that 2.5 billion people on earth have bamboo in their daily life, but almost all of all consider this grass which grows in nature as a symbol of their poverty. He designed the idea of bambuzerias, a social cooperative that produces and markets eco-products from bamboo. The first product he planned to make in large quantities in 2000 was the hanger.
The first cash flow
In 2001, Lucio learned the challenges of the city of Cajueiro, in the state of Alagoas, in the northeast of Brazil, where there was formerly an ancient tropical forest which was destroyed in the early 1960s to make way for sugar cane farms. In 1990, this region produced 85 % of all of Brazil sugar cane. Then, the pressure of a globalized market forced the introduction of mechanization and automation in agriculture and harvesting sugar cane, reducing the demand of workers by almost two thirds. Faced with a major social problem of unemployed agricultural workers, it designed with the local population an integrated plan ranging from the cultivation of bamboo to the marketing of finished products. He proposed to regenerate the degraded soil with bamboo. The sugar cane barons offered dry and unproductive areas to plant 10,000 rods of phyllostachys viridis at the beginning, a slim local variety of only 1.5 cm in width which could be harvested quickly. In the six months which followed the launch of the project, Lucio had formed 80 former workers to produce 5,000 hangers per month. These hangers are made of bamboo, without glue or metal accessories, using only the available materials. The cardboard packaging of these design hangers is made from the remains of sugar cane bagasse from the local factory, which adds work to the population awaiting employment. A community characterized by a high unemployment rate, illiteracy and infant mortality, workers won as members of the cooperative in the first month $ 120. This offered a livelihood to families while planting, harvesting, transformation of bamboo and selling of hangers generate surplus which allows to continue to invest in the expansion of production with self -managed cash flows . Several design prizes, including Casa Planeta, have helped create a sustained demand for these ecological products from the cooperative which is now known as Bambuzeria Capricho. This initiative goes beyond the creation of jobs, it creates share capital.
The opportunity
The demand continued to increase. The Alagoas State now has 3 production centers each win 10 to 15 Cruzeiros ($ 6 to 9) per hanger and income per worker thanks to an effective marketing and distribution campaign reach a little less than $ 500, Which is a fortune for any worker in Brazil. This income raises the community, offers work to marginalized citizens, while giving new impetus to the regeneration of the Atlantic tropical forest by planting these pioneers of biodiversity, offering an alternative to the cultivation of sugar cane. The range of products has extended from hangers to furniture and garden materials. Lucio decided that these opportunities must offer opportunities to Brazilians of African desktop, unemployed daily workers, street children and citizens with special needs. This approach which combines social, cultural, ecological and economic development is a good example of the way in which the blue economy can contribute to a new social development, while putting nature back on its co-evolutionary path. The Zeri Brazil Foundation has supported Lucio since 2000 which visited the Zeri Bambou pavilion at the Hanover Universal Exhibition. Since 2012, Lucio has offered training to create his concept of a bamboo civilization, including human development, work ethics, social integration, health care and entrepreneurship in more than 30 communities in Brazil . At the last census, this led to the creation of 5 bambuzerias in the form of cooperatives and a large number of independent craftsmen producing some 25,000 hangers per month. The hanger has become a symbolic product, and many others could enter the market inspired by this successful business model that has proven itself for more than a decade. Lucio believes that the era of bamboo has only just started since bamboo contains 6 times more cellulose than a pine which is the favorite source of paper of Scandinavian and North American manufacturers. And, based on Lucio's vast experience in interior and exterior design, he thinks that this opportunity to create a culture of bamboo is only a question of years. Perhaps the only thing that is missing is more entrepreneurs who do not distinguish between social affairs and real affairs. The blue economy only promotes entrepreneurs who embark on real affairs, always social and ecological. And Lucio Ventania is a fine example to follow.
