Mattress Recycling Services Growing in Popularity

Mattress Recycling Services are Growing in Popularity

Mattress Recycling is growing in populartity across Australia as the cost of rubbish removals increases.  But it is not only the cost of getting rid of Matresses that is driving the interest in mattress recycling services. Many people are becoming more and more consciuos of the environmental impacts of throwing everything away and just sending stuff to landfill to be buried. In landfill mattresses are a serious problem as they create voids or air pockets in the tip that can fill with gases and leachate. The mattress can also "walk" their way to the surface of the tip releasing the gases and leachate into the atmosphere, giving rises to bad smells and other dangers. 

The mattress recycling movement has been gaining momentum over the past 5 years and the resue of mattresses from landfill have been growing steadily over that time. Such is the success of the service we are seeing businesses and government trying to coat tail upon the work and innovation of the businesses that set out to make a difference. Councils are trying to get in on the act, along with retail bedding outlets, hotels, motels and resorts. Even aged care facilities and other specialist accommodation are thinking siginificantly more about how they can work to avoid needless waste.

Mattress Recycling Services save valuable resources and Money

Recycling mattresses ensures all the resources contained in them can be reclaimed and managed so that they are reused or recycled. But not only that, reports show that the average space needed in a landfill for a single mattress is 0.65m3. That means for every 10 single mattresses, we’re wasting 6.5 cubic metres of landfill space.  Double mattresses, Queens and King sized mattresses are more than a cubic meter each. That means that each year Australia would be filling the equivalent of 1,000 Olympic sized pools with mattresses.

Innerspring mattresses are made of essentially springs and "comfort layers". The springs or coils are made of  curved pieces of high-density steel wire that compresses or expands depending on where you lay on the bed. These springs or coils are usually made of steel wire that is 12 to 15 gauge or about 2mm in diameter.   The comfort layers protect your body from the steel springs which could be a bit pokey. The mattresses comfort layer is usually comprised of three layers the middle upholstery, the insulator, and the quilting. The quilting is the outer most layer whcih is usually cotton material. The next layer in is the middle upholstery which adds greater comfort and is made of natural fibers and/or foam. Inner most is the insulator layer that holds everything inplace, keeping the spring coils and the comfort layers together without allow anything to buch up.

When recycling the mattress the materials are pulled apar and separate so they can be recycled and reused. Steel spring coils are sent to scrap or metal merchants.  Here the steel coils are melted down and used in for new steel items in buildings,  infrastructure, vehicles and appliances. So your mattress could come back as a fridge or dish washer in it next life. The foam, wadding and latex from inside the mattress can also be recycled into various new products like carpet underlay, paper from the cotton and fiberous wadding.

Mattress Recycling Services are good to the Environment and your Purse

So in addition to helping the environment, recycling can be friendly to your purse. A mattress can weigh anywhere between 30 to 50 kilos. (that is 0.03 to 0.05 of a tonne).  Each tonne of waste can cost between $150 to $450 (depending on which state you live in) to dispose of at a land-fill plus the transport and handling to get it there. And the largest expese when getting rid of a mattress is all the handling. If you send a mattress to a landfill site or transfer station then there are sepate locattions where they have to be taken.

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