Southern Indiana goes GREEN
typical mattress is a 2
cubic foot assembly of steel,
wood, cotton and polyurethane
A
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
What to do
increasing public concerns about the
environment—and a greater desire to
recycle everything we can—has come with your old
a handful of private companies and
nonprofit groups that want to make
sure your old bed doesn’t end up in a
landfill.
mattress ?
The Lane County, Oregon chapter of
the charity St. Vincent de Paul Society,
for example, has spearheaded one of
the nation’s most successful mattress
recycling initiatives via its DR
(“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 million or more pounds over the course
Those who aren’t near a recycling
in Oakland, California in 2001. (Why of a year. “A well-oiled recycling factory
facility might consider giving their
hundreds of miles away in Oakland? can reuse 90 percent of the mattress,”
old mattress away. But many health
To “go where the mattresses are,” says reports Josh Peterson of Discovery’s
departments prohibit donating mattresses
Chance Fitzpatrick of the group.) The Planet Green website. “The cotton and
to charities like the Salvation Army or
facility has been processing upwards cloth get turned into clothes. The springs
Goodwill. So what’s an upgraded sleeper
of 00 mattresses and box springs per and the foam get recycled, and the wood
with a perfectly good old mattress to
week ever since. gets turned into chips.”
do? The web-based Freecycle Network
allows people to post stuff to give away
During the recycling process, each While the DR facility only takes
to anyone willing to come pick it up;
mattress or box spring is pushed mattresses from a small group of
likewise, chances are your local version
onto a conveyor belt, where specially waste haulers and individuals around
of Craigslist also has a “free” section
designed saws cut away soft materials the San Francisco Bay Area, other
where you can post that it as available.
on the top and bottom, separating the mattress recyclers are popping up
polyurethane foam and cotton fiber around the U.S. and beyond. Some
E’s Earth Talk, is an environmen-
from the framework. The metal pieces examples include Nine Lives Mattress
tal column syndicated to over 1,000
are magnetically removed, and the Recycling in Pamplico, South Carolina;
newspapers and publications; appears
remaining fiber materials are then Conigliaro Industries in Framingham,
bimonthly in Southern Indiana Living
shredded and baled. The whole process Massachusetts; MattCanada in Montreal,
Magazine.
takes one worker just three to four Québec; and Dreamsafe in Moorabbin,
minutes per mattress. Australia. To find a mattress recycler near

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it
you, consult the free online database at
to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine,
On a slow day, the DR facility Earth911.org.
P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 0881; submit it at:
recycles some 1,500 pounds of
www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail:
earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at:
polyurethane foam, which totals a half
www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.
8 July/August 2009
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