Best Ways to Reuse or Recycle Wire Hangers

"Where's a wire hanger when you need one?" I've asked myself that a few times. But some folks are more apt to ask this: "What do I do with all these wire hangers?" Deciding what to do with a load of wire hangers has become a concern for scores of folks; unfortunately millions of wire hangers end up in the trash. Learn what you can do to reuse or recycle your wire hangers.

Wire Hangers: Recycling Dilemma?

Wire hangers are made of steel, and you'd think they could be recycled in your local bins. But this is iffy. Many recycling centers don't deal with steel and suggest that you seek out scrap-metal recycling. Other centers with means of magnetizing wire hangers out of collected garbage, find wire hangers to be an extreme nuisance--getting tangled up in the machinery and needing to be removed by hand.

Wire Hangers: Return Them Where You Got Them

Perhaps the best way to recycle used wire hangers is to attempt to return them to the place you got them. If they are from your local drycleaner, see if they will take them back. In today's economy, the savings to your drycleaner might be very much appreciated. If they can't reuse the wire hangers, they'll know where and how to recycle them.

Wire Hangers: Tuck a Few Away

But don't be so quick to move the wire hangers out of your home. Those wire hangers have several beneficial household uses. When you really need one, you need to have one tucked away in the back of a closet or under a sink--especially if you are no long purchasing clothing that needs to be dry-cleaned.

Here are several household ideas for those wire hangers.

1. Make a plant stand or trellis pole.
2. Use a length of wire to fish-out "gunk" from stuck drains.
3. Keep wire hangers for hanging clothes at your next garage sale.
4. Use a length of wire to press the emergency release on locked doors.
5. Use a length of wire to unlock locked car doors on older cars.
6. Wrap two wire hangers together with yarn to make a padded hanger.
7. Sand paint off the end you'll use for roasting marshmallows.
8. Use wire hangers to hang ties, belts, and scarves in your closet.
9. Use wire hangers in small closets to fit in more clothes.
10. Keep a few wire hangers around for making Halloween costumes.

If you've saved all the wire hangers you might ever need for a lifetime, and you still need to move some out of your home, consider donating your wire hangers to local shelters, hospitals, or nursing homes. You might also ask a classroom teacher if wire hangers would be useful for art projects. If nothing else, you could list your wire hangers for free on Freecycle. Someone who truly needs the wire hangers might even come to pick them up.

With all these ways to reuse or recycle wire hangers, you should be able to find at least one way that works for you and your situation.