Clean and Green

Like any other gym user, Thian Zhiwen, 28, did not give a thought to the hangers hung in his locker.

One day, however, the chance combination of being frustrated by a broken hanger found in his locker and seeing a creative wall advertisement in the locker room resulted in the idea of bloomerHang®, an eco-friendly hanger that doubles up an advertising platform.

In June 2008, Zhiwen founded bloomerang, a $10,000 start-up. His former junior college classmate, Wong Joon Ian, also 28, joined him later in August the same year. Currently, bloomerHang is the sole product offered by bloomerang and it is 100% environmentally friendly.

The biodegradable hangers are made in Singapore from recycled paper board and card board, held together by water-based glue and carry advertisements printed in earth-friendlier soy inks. The glossy advertisements are also given their shine by an oil varnish instead of a thin film of plastic or spot UV varnish typically used in product packaging and magazines.

Unlike abroad, despite the high volume—tens of thousands—of hangers used every month, few laundry and dry cleaning service providers here encourage customers to return their plastic hangers for reuse. According to the waste statistics and recycling rate in 2009 from the National Environment Agency, only eight per cent of plastics used in Singapore are recycled.

“We have seen our bloomerHang perform in laundry operations as well as under retail operations’ conditions and we are working on the feedback received from the businesses and end-users to constantly improve our bloomerHang.” said Zhiwen, addressing the concern that the paper board hangers are not as sturdy. bloomerang is a finalist in the President’s Design Award 2009.

Produced by social enterprise Bloomerang, the innovative concept of well-designed and eco-friendly paper hanger bloomerHang, which is a finalist in the President’s Design Award 2009, relates a creative business idea with low capital start up. Bloomerang does not rely on the grants or funding that sometimes comes with the social tag. But at the same time, it fulfills both environmental and social aims.

Green Advertising

However, yet another concern that the duo are often questioned about is that they are more expensive to produce and hence, more costly for users.

The cost of a bloomerHang is many times higher than that of a plastic hanger and instead of producing overseas where costs of production are low, they chose to produce bloomerHang in Singapore for easier quality control checks and for a smaller carbon footprint by cutting back on the carbon emission from overseas and overland freight transportation.

But here is where the ingenuity of the social enterprise steps in.

Advertisers looking for a novel and targeted platform to advertise their products and services cross-subsidise these hangers. For example, Terra Plana, a UK lifestyle shoe brand, which has two outlets at the ION Orchard and Mandarin Gallery, pays for 5,000 bloomerHang to be distributed through bloomerang’s closed channels. These bloomerHangs carry Terra Plana’s brand messages, as well as a discount coupon.

Paper hanger ads bloomerHangs are distributed through laundry and dry cleaning service providers, hotels and boutique hostels for backpackers and gyms such as the Green ‘n’ Clean Laundry, the Gallery Hotel and Dynaforce gyms. To discourage indiscriminate abuse of the free hangers, bloomerang charges a stipend sum of five cents, a marked discount from plastic hangers sold to the launderers, for example, at 13 cents per piece. However, bloomerang hopes to move to a truly free model in the near future.

Green and Good

It is a win-win for the distributors, advertisers as well as end-users and the environment. Businesses like the launderers, gyms, and hotels receive these eco-hangers at a much lower price while advertisers get their messages across to highly sought after audiences including households of PMEBs, sports enthusiasts, tourists and independent travelers to Singapore.

Now, freshmen and seniors staying on campus would also have access to bloomerHangs as well—the eco-hangers are found in the wardrobes on NUS and NTU campuses. SMU student hostels have recently signed up as well.

For users like Josephine Cheong, she reuses her bloomerHang for some of her laundry until they tear then guiltlessly dump them when they can no longer be used.

“I feel good using the environmentally-friendly hangers because they do much less damage to the environment. Besides, they look much better than the usual ugly plastic ones and are much lighter than the wooden ones,” said Ms Cheong, who often has to dump the many plastic hangers that come with her laundry.

To date, bloomerang has replaced some 30,000 plastic hangers with its recycled and 100% biodegradable paper board and cardboard eco-hangers.

To find out how to save the earth one hanger at a time, visit Bloomerang’s website here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 13th, 2010 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Feature Articles, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.