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I take them back to the dry cleaner.

i don't dry clean anything. That stuff will kill ya. Handwash all my sweaters, and air and brush out my wool coats.

No... wire... hangers! What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you: no wire hangers EVER!!!

I return them to my dry cleaner, who always takes them.

weird. the dry cleaners that i go to here in dc accept used wire hangers - one shop even started offering a discount if you bring your hangers back to them.

we're cutting back on the dry-cleaning by buying things that can be washed in the washer at home. And use all the handers that are still in the house to hand the small things that need to be air dried.

Wow...I answered trash and it just didn't sit right for someone reason. I will be taking them back to the cleaners from now on. It's funny how reality sits in when you are faced with a question on something you've never thought about.

Our local thrift store accepts them, so I drop them off there. Also, as part of my Spring Cure, I switched to white plastic hangers for everything in my closet so that everything hangs at the same level and because wire hangers stretch out the shoulders of my shirts.

Koikub - love the quote. That movie is why I don't have ANY wire hangers in my closet. Freaky scene.

To answer the question, I trash. I didn't know you could recycle them. I'll have to check into it. My cleaners won't take them back and the local charities don't want them for their thrift stores.

We donate them to Value Village, resale shops, etc.

What movie is that quote from? Seems so familiar but I can't place it!

Guess I'm lucky - my dry cleaner takes them. I assume they are reused...

I hand wash my clothes. However the previous owners of our house left a ton for us. (They left us a lot of "gifts" we never knew we wanted..) In the past we have donated quite a few to thrift shops. This time the hangers went to a friend who teaches art a local high school. She uses them for all types of things from making mobiles, providing support in sculptures, and even some real funky jewelry. I kept a few that I cut into smaller pieces to attach my climbing vines to the trellis. If you look at them as wire you can find quite a few uses for them.

spossberg, that is Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford screeching to her daughter Christina (Diana Scarwid) in "Mommie Dearest."

Well, it's nice to have them around to use as tools to fish things out from behind sofas now and again, but I mainly bring them back to my dry cleaners, and they say thank you. Now... whether they mutter nasticities under their breath or whether they actually re-use them, I don't really know.

By the way, it's Mommie Dearest that the quote is from.

I take them back to my dry cleaner most of the year (he WANTS them back) , but I also keep some for my garage sale.

We donate them to a thrift store. I also limit clothing purchases that require dry cleaning.

My dry cleaner is more than happy to take them!

I return them. They say thank you. I hope they are reused.

I Freecycle/Craigslisted all my crappy old wire & mismatched hangers. People were more than happy to pick them up for free.

my dry cleaner takes them back

I take them to the salvation army, which is the only thrift store in my tiny town. They've never turned them down.

I finally bought that dryel home-dry-cleaning kit about six months ago and found that very few things really need to go to the cleaners'.

I've never drycleaned anything, but they're easy enough to inherit in various ways. I use them for displaying tshirts at shows, because they take up the least room.

A friend went to Kenya a few years ago as a summer missionary. Her host family begged for her to being wire hangers when she came---as most wire hangers are taken apart so the wire can be used for something more important. Maybe a few calls to missionary services would turn up leads for wire hangers.

repurpose as blackberry picking pokers and pullers. Flatten you and keep the hook end to pull the blackberry vines towards you or pull up vines that are down low and filled with plump, juicy berries (that would otherwise be unreachable due to prickles and thorns...)

simplest solution: don't buy things that need dry cleaning.

Wow, am i weird? I stopped dry cleaning everything when I learned of the harsh chemicals involved.

Dry-cleaning is pretty environmentally unsound to begin with. Most things can be handwashed and will last longer if they are. I try to avoid those things that can't be washed, but do use the Dryel sheets every once in a while for a few things (say, one load two or three times a year). Actual drycleaning is limited to suits, which fortunately I one have to wear once or twice a year.

I really need to find out how environmentally problematic the Dryel sheets are. I suspect they're not great, but better than drycleaning, if only because you don't get five large plastic bags and five wire hangers with your toxic chemicals.

Back to the dry cleaners they go.

Where are y'all finding wash and wear mens suits?

back to the dry cleaners or to thrift stores

Other than my winter coat, I don't wear anything that requires dry cleaning. I consider that a point of personal pride.

(Seriously, why in the world would a dry cleaner not accept returned hangers?)

I always take back to the cleaners

I always take them back, neatly bundled, to my cleaners.

i don't use them. i always ask for my clothes to be folded, whether laundry or dry cleaning.

i then have a closet full of wood hangers (dirt-cheap from ikea) and hang my clothes when i bring them home.

I don't acquire too many wire hangers. I found that if I do need to wet-clean something (more eco-friendly than dry cleaning) I bring my garments on the original wire hangers that I got the first time so I just keep reusing the same 3 wire hangers. Sometimes garments will say "dry clean" when they're made from a simple cotton! In those kind of cases, usually it's special trims or buttons that make the manufacturer put the "dry clean" tag on there, so I figure as long as I'm careful hand washing or the "hand wash" cycle on my washer will be fine.

I thought it was odd that the article in the Times had a picture with a sign of something like "recycling hangers here", but the concept of recycling/re-using was mentioned nowhere in the article. Did I miss something?

If I'm not using them to hang up pants in the closet, then we usually reuse them by making hotdog or marshmallow roasting sticks out of them.
Great for camping!

i've often found that items labeled as "dry clean only" survive just fine being machine washed.

gretchenalexis, could you share the name/location of the cleaners who offer discounts for bringing hangars back?

And to contribute my own situation .. I have a pile of them which I look at almost daily and I think "what a mess .. what do I do with those???"

I take bags to store and they get annoyed too,( except Wholel foods) I would think the cleaners would too. T
ry to have a good talk with them to explain why you do it.

I have a fantasy about making lamp shades from them, but I haven't gotten it to actually work yet.

am i the only one who actually uses the wire hangers for their dress shirts? they hardly weigh anything anyway, and they've never left nipples in the shoulders of the shirts, so... ?
of course, all of my plastic hangers for pants are different colors, so i guess i'm just not concerned with my closet aesthetic anyway.

Our dry cleaner has a return recepticle specifically for the hangers

I take them back to the cleaners. We don't get much stuff drycleaned but my husband has his shirts laundered. No one has ever refused them, and that's living in 3 neighborhoods in NYC with many drycleaners.

My cleaners take them back. Both the bags and the hangers.

My drycleaner takes mine back but I always reserve a small stash of hangers and plastic covers for packing my tuxes and blazers for my travels - it keeps them fairly fresh and the wire hangers are lighter in weight/take up less room than wood.

I haven't used the drycleaners in forever but I noticed a sign that said they welcomed hangers back for recycling.

My drycleaners has a bin for returning hangers right by the door.

I use them to make my own dowsing rods, then I use those to find underground water

If the drycleaner you use doesn't take them back, try taking them to another drycleaner.

I think I've only had one thing drycleaned in my life. Even so, we do aquire these wire hangers in abundance over time. I keep a few on hand to use for crafts. They work well as a frame for butterfly wings, which my daughter requests every now and then. We keep one in the back of the closet for the days that my young son accidentally ends up locking himself in the washroom. The wire hangers fit the little "emergency release" in the doorknob, perfectly. We use one to unclog our old, crummy vaccuum that desperatly needs replacing (the vaccuum, not the wire hanger...hehe.) They come in handy for all sorts of random things, so I never get rid of ALL of them when we do a purge.

I keep the ones that have the white cardboard tubes on them, to hang my pants on.

The ones I get from the dry cleaners (husbands dress shirts only) we use to hang our other laundry outside to air dry. (Or inside if the wether is cooler and wet) I have a long pole that I can put out or take down (no eye sore) and I have the hangers on them like in my closet, yet I am air drying my clothes. I simply had to purchase some clothes pins to use to attach clothes to the thin wire hangers. Works exactly like a mini clothes line. Works great. (I don't hang the clothes on the wire hangers like you would if they were dry - they would dry funny, hence the clothes pins.)

When we have all that we need we take the rest back to the dry cleaners, annoyed or not. :)

When I was a little girl, we used to collect wire hangers. When we collected enough, we'd match them up in pairs. Each pair would get wrapped in yarn (we got to pick our own colors) so all those crappy old wire hangers looked fabulous and our closets colorful. Even my dad would sit in the living room and wrap hangers with us. (In his defense, they were always "camo" hangers... no pink for my dad.)

I don't dry clean anything. It's toxic and a waste of resources. Plus, the materials that require dry-cleaning are all eco-unfriendly and/or animal-unfriendly. I guess there are even more bonuses to trying to live simply than I had realized -- who knew that there were people out there who had to worry about hangers piling up?

"...the materials that require dry-cleaning are all eco-unfriendly and/or animal-unfriendly."

And exactly how is wool animal- or eco-unfriendly?

"When I was a little girl, we used to collect wire hangers. When we collected enough, we'd match them up in pairs. Each pair would get wrapped in yarn (we got to pick our own colors) so all those crappy old wire hangers looked fabulous and our closets colorful. Even my dad would sit in the living room and wrap hangers with us. (In his defense, they were always "camo" hangers... no pink for my dad.)"

Lauren -
My grandmother would crochet little slipcovers for her wire hangers...
...Thanks for the happy memory.
:-)

I recently brought a huge stack to the local green dry cleaner and the woman was so happy.

You can always bring your own plastic hangers with you the next time you go to the cleaners and request that they use only what you bring in. They might give you a hard time in the beginning, but at least you won't have to worry about having an overload of wire hangers around your house.

I noticed that quite a few people mentioned the issues with the chemicals used in the dry cleaning process and that hand washing certain items marked as "dry clean only" is just as effective. Could we possibly discuss amoung us the different methods we use to alternatively clean our "dry clean only" clothing? I have read about using hand washing and the delicates setting on the washing machine but I am still nervous about dunking my quite expensive cashmere jumper in a bowl of sudsy water. Maybe we can swap advice on what to do to clean various fabrics and any mistakes we have made along the way.....?

I don't buy anything that needs dry cleaning. My job as a lowly underling does not require fancy dress. :)

I do have a few wire hangers that came from God knows where. They are good for hanging slacks or toasting marshmallows.

I rarely dry clean anymore. A few year's ago when I had a handfull in the closet I made a art piece with it. It came out really neat!

As a knitter, I'm always looking for some wire hangers - I use them to dry my wool socks. (Check out this link: http://www.needletrax.com/blockers.htm
I also second the marshmallow/hot dog turner-thingies. Mmmmm, s'mores...

Thread_Bare: It's actually really easy to wash a cashmere sweater. This link:
http://www.ehow.com/how_7805_wash-cashmere-sweater.html
spells out the process. The most important things to remember are what to avoid:
No temperature extremes (really hot or cold)
Not much agitation
If it's wet, never put it in the dryer (but I think that Dryel system would be fine, or maybe if you have a fancy new dryer with a steam cycle, but I'd check the dryer's instructions)
this goes for things made from any animal fiber - wool, alpaca, cashmere, angora.
Natural fibers are worth the hand washes!!

Find a new dry cleaner. Mine takes them.

I second thread_bare's post. I have yet to find a suit that is machine washable, and Dryel, while it may work in some climates, is insufficient for proper cleaning in the humid concrete jungle I live in.

i reuse my wire hangers for dress/button down shirts. or give them away.

Dryell was also in Ireland, loved it. But for some reason, it's no longer sold.

Green Cleaners on W 72nd at Broadway takes all of their drycleaning/laundry detrius back; bags, paper, hangers, everything.