So you’ve already picked out an eco-friendly dry cleaner, and dutifully take back your hangers for reuse. Those pesky plastic film sheaths covering your newly-clean clothes are tougher to reuse or recycle though….
Which is why more environmentalists are opting for reusable garment bags. Below are some of the bag options on the market, listed in order of eco-ness:
The garment bag you already own. Already have a bag hanging in your closet? Reusing that one’s more eco than buying a new bag, even if the new one’s made of eco-friendly materials.
Jendarling bags. These pretty bags are made in California, many out of eco-friendly materials like recycled or organic cotton.
Jendarling bags do, however, have a downside: These bags are as expensive as they are stylish! The Luxe Lite Jade bag, made with recycled cotton duck, organic cotton accents, and a leather label made using textile waste, will cost you $120 — though you can get 20% off that price until January 5 by using this code: Idealbite. (via Simply Fab)
Clothesnik by Reusenik. This cotton (sorry, not organic) garment bag’s gotten a lot of press and celebrity attention — and is also conveniently available at many retail stores, including Livingreen in Culver City and The Green Life in Santa Monica.
Thankfully, Clothesniks are much more affordable than Jendarling bags. If you can’t buy local, a Clothesnik can be yours for $30 on Reusenik’s site — or $24 on BuyGreen.
Green Garmento. If you find the idea of replacing plastic with other plastic an eco irony — even if the former’s disposable and the latter not — then this bag isn’t for you. Green Garmento bags are made with polypropylene, an extremely difficult-to-recycle plastic (#5) that most municipal recycling won’t accept.
Still, since most municipal recycling programs also don’t accept plastic bags, reusing a Green Garmento bag’s still more eco than continuing to get those disposable sheaths. You can get one of these bags for $9 if you give Green Garmento the contact info of your dry cleaner.
Photos via Jendarling, Reusenik, and Green Garmento
If you know any potters or have a community college nearby with pottery courses, you might ask if they need your dry cleaner plastic bags. Potters use these bags frequently to prevent unfinished pieces from drying out or slowing the drying process in less humid areas.
Comment by M — December 23, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
Just tell your cleaners not to wrap your clothes in plastic…how simple is that?
Comment by Carey Okrand — December 24, 2008 @ 9:50 am
For those who get their recyclables picked up by the City of L.A., you can put your plastic dry-cleaning bag and metal hanger in your blue bin, and it will be recycled. For a list of all the things you can put in your blue bin, go to http://www.lacity.org/san/solid_resources/recycling/what_is_recyclable.htm
Comment by Mark D.l — December 24, 2008 @ 10:01 am
I bought two Green Garmentos at the Eco Gift Festival in Santa
Monica. Not only are they very cool looking but my dry cleaner loves
them. She said the price of her plastic bags have gone up and wishes
more customers would bring in reusable garment bags. And, a very
pretty girl commented on it so it was worth it’s weight in (green) gold!
Comment by Matthew Englebert — December 30, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
I try to buy clothes that don’t require dry cleaning as often as possible, but I sometimes can’t avoid it. I’ve only just heard about these. After digging around, I found that you can get a set of 2 bags from http://www.greenhome.com/ for under $20!
Comment by Beth — March 30, 2009 @ 2:13 pm