08. Mar 2022
Drugstore chain dm uses clothes hangers made from grass
The topic of sustainability is increasingly in the foreground at Germany's largest drugstore group dm: Since October last year, the clothes hangers for dm's ALANA and PUSBLU children's textiles have been made of the grass fibre-based bioplastic AgriPlast from the company Biowert Industrie GmbH in Odenwald, Germany.
The bioplastic AgriPlast, consisting of 40 % grass fibres and 60 % recycled waste plastic (polypropylene, PP), is processed into "grass clothes hangers" by Cortec GmbH in Odenwald, Germany. The sustainable clothes hangers will gradually replace the drugstore chain's previous plastic clothes hangers. This largely eliminates the use of petroleum-based plastics, which in turn reduces the CO2 footprint, as approximately 64 % CO2 is saved in the production of the hangers.
The goal of Biowert Industrie GmbH is to utilise raw materials as completely as possible in a closed-loop process, generating no wastewater or waste and using only a minimum of resources. In the spirit of the circular economy, the "grass clothes hangers" are used in a closed cycle at the drugstore group: The hanger remains in the dm store when the customer buys an item of clothing. All the hangers are then collected in the dm stores and sorted by the workshop for people with disabilities "NEW Nordeifelwerkstätten". The hangers are then transported back to the place of production for further use. This cycle is repeated five to eight times until damaged hangers are completely recycled into new "grass hangers" and thus returned to the cycle, closing the loop.