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Recycling your mattress conserves resources and means less mattresses heading to landfills.

Find it! Mattress recycling and donation options

Mattress recycling is a growing area and services are becoming available in new locations all the time. Your local county office or recycling agency can tell you whether your mattress is recyclable and where the recycling locations are.

But if you can't find a recycler in your area, consider either donating or giving away your old mattress instead. Most furniture and mattress stores offer a donation service for used mattresses, so take advantage of the program if it's out with the old and in with the new. Or check out online listings where you can offer your mattress to anyone for free.

Recycling your mattress helps you go green because…

• It prevents useful materials from being wasted, and reduces the consumption of raw materials and energy usage, and hence greenhouse gas emissions, compared to virgin production.

Recycling is a basic concept of modern waste management and is the third component in the waste hierarchy, after reduce and reuse. Products made from recycled materials consume up to 95 percent less energy than materials made from virgin materials and also promote a significant reduction in the amount of water usage and air pollution created. Landfill space and virgin resources are conserved, and jobs created. Currently none of these "external drawbacks" are factored into the purchase price (in the form of a tax, for example) of products that use virgin materials, and so secondary materials do not currently benefit from a cost advantage.

In the US, 33,000,000 mattresses are produced annually and 20,000,000 are discarded.[1] Mattresses and boxsprings are a problem in landfills because they do not readily biodegrade, can create flammable air pockets, and can be dangerous for equipment operators. The processing of mattresses for recycling has traditionally been a problem because they are bulky and hard to move, even with heavy machinery. Springs or coils can jam machines such as shredders and saws. Removing a trapped mattress from a large machine has to be done manually and is very dangerous for workers.

The average boxspring mattress is a 23 cubic-foot assembly of polyurethane foam, steel, cotton, and wood. Therefore keeping them out of landfills is a matter of efficiently recycling them so their core materials can be recycled into new products. Companies that specialize in mattress recycling have refined the process to an automated procedure in which the polyurethane foam and cotton fiber on either side of the steel framework is sawn away. The remaining materials are put through a shredder. The metal is removed with a magnet from the shredded mass, and the remaining fiber material is bailed. On average 60 to 90 percent of a mattress can be recycled, depending on its original quality and condition.[2]

The average queen size mattress weighs about 63 pounds. On average polyurethane foam accounts for six of those 63 pounds.[2] Polyurethanes can be sent for reuse, chemical recycling, or can be incinerated for energy recovery. In many cases, polyurethanes can be just as valuable after they have served their original intended purpose and are ready to be discarded.

Recycling one mattress saves 23 cubic feet and as much as 65 pounds of material from taking up landfill space, thus having a large impact on the growing space crisis in landfills. The US faces a landfill space crises in several large cities, including New York and and San Francisco.

Alternatives to recycling

If a mattress can't be recycled, if it's in good shape it can often be donated to a local charity. Most local mattress companies offer to pick-up and donate old mattresses for reuse when a new one is purchased and delivered. Ask them about this service before purchasing a new mattress. Mattresses that can be reused as is are sold or given to low-income families or institutions.

Mattresses that cannot be reused in their current form but have usable springs are rebuilt, with new materials over the recycled springs. However rebuilding and refurbishing mattresses involves liability, sanitation, and quality concerns.

External links

• Center for the Polyurethanes Industry - Recycling & waste reduction
• Oregon Symposium for Entrepreneurial Nonprofits - Recycling Programs
• Polyurethane Foam Association - The Recyclability of Flexible Polyurethane Foam (FPF)
• Recycling Today - Charity To Operate Full Mattress Recycling Facility
• International Sleep Products Association - Member Resource Center