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Beddy, Bye: Wide variety of materials in mattresses make them hard to recycle
Mark Nockleby Photo, Courtesy of Flickr
A number of companies and nonprofit agencies now accept mattresses, break them down and recycle their component parts for new uses.
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Published: July 28, 2009
Dear EarthTalk: How can I recycle my old mattress if the place I buy a new one from doesn't take it? What do mattress companies do with old mattresses when they do take them? Do they recycle any of the material? -- J. Belli, Bridgeport, Conn.
Dear J.: A typical mattress is a 23-cubic-foot assembly of steel, wood, cotton and polyurethane foam. Given this wide range of materials, mattresses have typically been difficult to recycle -- and still most municipal recycling facilities won't offer to do it for you. But along with increasing public concerns about the environment -- and a greater desire to recycle everything we can -- has come a handful of private companies and nonprofit groups that want to make sure that your old bed doesn't end up in a landfill.
The Lane County, Ore., chapter of the charity St. Vincent de Paul Society, for example, has one of the nation's most successful mattress recycling initiatives with its DR3 ("Divert, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle") program. "Keeping (mattresses) out of landfills is a matter of efficiently recycling them so their core materials can be reincarnated into any number of new products," reports the group, which opened a large mattress-recycling center in Oakland, Calif., in 2001. (Why hundreds of miles away in Oakland? To "go where the mattresses are," said Chance Fitzpatrick of the group.) The center has been processing 300 mattresses and box springs a week.
During the recycling process, each mattress or box spring is pushed onto a conveyor belt, where specially designed saws cut away soft materials on the top and bottom, separating the polyurethane foam and cotton fiber from the framework. The metal pieces are magnetically removed, and the remaining fiber materials are then shredded and baled. The whole process takes one worker just three to four minutes for each mattress.
On a slow day, the DR3 center recycles some 1,500 pounds of polyurethane foam, which totals a half million or more pounds over the course of a year. "A well-oiled recycling factory can reuse 90 percent of the mattress," reports Josh Peterson of Discovery's Planet Green Web site. "The cotton and cloth get turned into clothes. The springs and the foam get recycled, and the wood gets turned into chips."
While the DR3 center only takes mattresses from a small group of waste haulers and individuals in San Francisco, other mattress recyclers are popping up around the United States and beyond. Some examples include Nine Lives Mattress Recycling in Pamplico, S.C.; Conigliaro Industries in Framingham, Mass.; MattCanada in Montreal, Quebec; and Dreamsafe in Moorabbin, Australia. To find a mattress recycler near you, consult the database at Earth911.org. In the Triad, it lists the Salvation Army in High Point and the town of Kernersville (but for town residents only.)
Those who aren't near a recycling center might consider giving their old mattress away. But many health departments prohibit donating mattresses to such charities as the Salvation Army or Goodwill.
So what's an upgraded sleeper with a perfectly good old mattress to do? The Freecycle Network Web site allows people to post stuff to give away to anyone willing to come pick it up; likewise, chances are your local version of Craigslist also has a "free" section where you can post that it as available.
■ Do you have an environmental question? Send it to EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek; or e-mail earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.
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