What About Auckland Council Inorganic Rubbish Collections
Once a year Auckland Council offers a free inorganic collection service for a limited time in each area. They will take up to 1 cubic metre per rate paying household per year. Unfortunately, many larger mattresses are already bigger than 1 cubic metre, so they will not get collected for free. You can read more about Auckland Council Inorganic Collections at our blog here.
If you dont have access to a strong helper or a vehicle to transport your mattress- you can call in a professional Auckland Council licensed waste removal company like . We assess your unwanted items based on how many cubic metres your mattress will likely take up. We have a two cubic metre minimum fee to cover transportation costs to and from your property. If your mattress has another life- we will drop it off to one of the charities we know will be able to use it again. If it cannot be re-used then we will dispose of it responsibly at the transfer station.
Give us a call if we can help send your mattress to a better place.If you are looking to buy a more sustainable mattress we strongly recommend the Sleepyhead Zero Mattress which is made from recycled materials and can be fully recycled again at the end of its life. You can see a video about that here.Junk Run
What To Do With Old Mattress: 11 Ways To Dispose Them
Mattresses are some of the big-ticket purchases every household will make from time to time. While youll only, ideally, need to replace this piece of furniture every 8 to ten years, dealing with your old unit can still cause some headache. Its size, weight, and other traits make it complicated to dispose of.
What to do with old mattress, you ask? The disposal of these hulking pieces can be quite tricky, so let us help you address this concern fully.
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Business & Institutional Mattress Recycling
Find a commercial mattress recycler. RecyclingWorks in Massachusetts is a free assistance program designed to help businesses and institutions maximize recycling, reuse and composting opportunities. Its web site includes a Recycling Provider Search for looking up companies that process a wide range of materials, including mattresses.
Help build the state’s mattress recycling infrastructure. MassDEP offers Recycling & Reuse Business Development Grants that subsidize private sector efforts to expand collection of materials banned from disposal or transport for disposal in the state.
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How To Donate A Mattress
Only consider donating your mattress if it is in decent shape. If its in really rough shape , then all youll do when you donate your mattress is create more work for the charity or organization you donate it to, who will have to figure out how to dispose of it soon after you leave it with them.
Recycling & Donating Old Mattresses And Box Springs
It is difficult and expensive to dispose of old discarded mattresses. They are hard to compact, take up a lot of space in landfills, and get caught up in the incinerator which adds up to the disposal cost. This makes recycling a mattress the better alternative.
Contrary to what many might think, there are many materials within mattresses that can commonly be recycled . Most mattress and box spring components can be disassembled and recycled easily. They are made of materials that can be used to manufacture a variety of new products.
- Foam Padding: Can be turned into carpet underlayment or animal bed padding / carpet padding
- Fabric / Fibers: Can be used in industrial oil filters and other textile applications
- Box springs: Can be recycled as metal scraps, used to make new appliances and building materials
- Wooden frames: Can be shredded to produce landscaping mulch or burned as an alternative fuel source
Additionally, if the mattress is in good condition, we can also donate it to a local charity to ensure it gets as much use as possible.
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How To Dispose Of A Mattress: Free And Paid Options
These are your options for getting rid of an old mattress, from recycling programs to trash pickup.
KJ Callihan
KJ Callihan is a freelance writer with a background in mental health and education. Her writing often covers product reviews and lists, animals and pet care, food and hospitality, health, wellness, and culture. When she isn’t crafting the perfect sentence, you may find her bingeing true crime documentaries, browsing mid-Michigan farmer’s markets, and tasting her son’s latest homemade cuisine
So it’s time to say goodbye to your worn out old mattress, but you aren’t sure how to dispose of it. While most of us would rather not add to the nearly 20 million mattresses that pile up in landfills every year, the alternatives may be trickier than they appear.
Recycling or donating mattresses seems like a simple enough endeavor, but the task can actually be quite challenging. Per the New York Times, some charities aren’t allowed to accept mattresses due to concerns over bed bugs or health department regulations, certain recycling programs have become less profitable and therefore less available, and many states don’t have recycling programs at all.
Plus, since foam fluctuates wildly in its profitability, some of the popular online mattress brands offering 100+ night trial periods don’t always stick to their promise of recycling or donating returned mattresses — a claim that potential customers may view as a good reason for purchasing.
Options For Mattress & Box Spring Recycling
Donate to a Charity. Use MassDEPs Beyond the Bin Recycling Directory to find organizations near you that accept mattresses.
Find Out if Your City or Town Has a Program. The map below indicates which communities are enrolled in the MassDEP Mattress Recycling Incentive grant program, which subsidizes mattress recycling. An alphabetical listing of communities is also available.
See SMRP Municipal Grants and Additional Resources below to learn more.
Please Note: If your town or city is not part of the MRI program, please contact your local health or public works department to learn about your communitys mattress disposal requirements and/or available recycling options.
Use a Recycler on State Contract. Municipalities and certain public entities may use the FAC90 Statewide Carpet & Mattress Recycling Services Contract to select a vendor to either accept mattresses on a per-unit basis or provide collection container rental and hauling.The following mattress recyclers are currently on state contract:
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The Mattress Landfill Crisis: How The Race To Bring Us Better Beds Led To A Recycling Nightmare
As the sleep economy grows, online companies vie to sell us new mattresses, offering 100-day returns. This has helped create an impossible waste mountain and a wild west of rogue recyclers
Mike Scollick and Richard Allsopp are talking about the worst things they ever found in a mattress. We had one where I think a dog had been lying on it, and the whole thing was just jumping with fleas, Allsopp says, shuddering. No one would touch it, so they had to use a cherry picker to move it. But thats not the worst of it, Scollick says: I stripped the cover off one once and it looked like somebody Died, interjects Allsopp.
Its fair to say you need a strong stomach to be in the mattress recycling game. Which Scollick and Allsopp have, along with several million pounds worth of equipment in their Coventry warehouse. I have come to see Circom, their mattress recycling firm, at work. Its a dirty but noble enterprise: Circom is one of only a handful of recyclers tackling the UKs ever-growing mattress problem.
And its not just a British problem. Mattresses are a global environmental nightmare. The US throws away 18.2m mattresses a year, but there are only 56 facilities available to recycle them.
Changing consumer behaviour is behind this ever-growing mattress mountain. Time was, you would change your mattress every eight to 10 years. But with online retailers offering more choice than ever, we have learned to expect better mattresses, and to replace them more frequently.
How Do You Destroy A Box Spring
Contact your local landfill or waste site to see if you can get rid of your box spring there. Bring the box spring to the location and throw it away if it’s allowed. Many landfills will have a fee for disposal, usually around $30 USD. Some landfills have limits of how many box springs you can throw away per year.
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Do I Need To Pay To Get Rid Of My Mattress
Mattress removal costs depend on the number of mattresses you need to get rid of on average, a junk removal service will charge $120 to $175. Before you decide to hire help or call your local sanitation service to collect your mattress, find out if the manufacturers warranty still covers your mattress.
The mattresss lifespan wont necessarily match the timeline of the warranty, and it only covers defects not caused by the customer. However, if youre trying to get rid of a lightly used mattress, these defects are typically included in whats covered by a mattress warranty:
Will My Trash Company Take My Old Mattress
Getting a new mattress helps you enjoy a better nights sleep. Over time, mattresses wear out and develop indentations and other problems that can wreak havoc on your back. Since mattresses tend to last between five and ten years, theyve usually gone through so much wear and tear that reselling them isnt possible. Unfortunately, this creates quite a problem, since mattressesincluding the top mattress along with box springscreate quite a bit of bulk and take up a lot of space. In most cases, waste management companies wont pick up mattresses with regular trash because they fill up their trucks so quickly. Find out exactly how to get rid of your mattress in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way so you can get back to enjoying your new one.
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Hire A Professional For Mattress Pick Up
What if no nearby organizations offer pick-up services, and dropping it off yourself is not an option?
Consider contacting a local mattress disposal service that sends trucks to transport your mattress to a charity, recycling location, a buyers address or etc. for a small fee. Weve covered some of the options above, but services like 1-800-GOT-JUNK will come and pick up pretty much anything.
How Often Should You Change Your Mattress
If you cant remember how many years youve had your mattress, the chances are its time for a new one. Even if it still feels comfortable, its likely to be less supportive and hygienic than when it was new.
Nearly a quarter of Which? members expect a new mattress to last more than a decade, according to a survey of 1,098 members in March 2021. That’s pretty optimistic, though. About a third said they’d expect it to last 8 to 10 years, which is about right.
The Sleep Council recommends replacing your mattress as often as every seven years, because after that time it will have been subjected to more than 20,000 hours of use. Thats the equivalent of 2,555 nights, which is a lot when you consider that adults lose an average of half a pint of fluid each night, and shed a pound of dead skin cells each year.
If reading that makes you shudder, head over to our guide on how to clean a mattress
Our durability tests reveal that the best mattresses can last up to a decade without softening, sagging or becoming less supportive. As long as you buy a good mattress and clean it regularly, you might be able to eke an extra few years out of it.
Buying a new bed frame won’t necessarily extend the life of your new mattress, but be aware that using a mattress with an inappropriate bed frame might invalidate its warranty. Take a look at our bed shopping tips to find out more.
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Can I Recycle An Old Mattress
Recycling an old mattress is not straightforward. They are made from many different materials including wood, metal or plastic springs, foam, padding, and fabric. Old mattresses are also big and heavy. Currently in the Auckland area there are no official mattress recycling schemes in place. Many of them literally end up in our landfills and will end up being buried.If you can manage to lift and carry your old mattress and you have a trailer or a vehicle big enough to transport it safely, then you have several options.
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Why Is Mattress Recycling So Important
There are two main reasons why it is important to dispose of your mattress properly.
- To Keep Mattresses out of Landfill. Mattresses take up a lot of space and can release harmful chemicals into the environment.
- To Stop Illegal Dumping which harms our communities and costs thousands of taxpayer dollars to clear up.
Worse still, many local authorities require you to wrap your mattress in a plastic mattress bag before they will pick it up! That means that not only the mattress itself but also all the plastic cover goes straight to landfill.
Needless to say, it is important to do whatever you can to stop that from happening.
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Why Recycle Your Old Mattress
So why should you go to the effort of getting your mattress to a recycler who is going to save it from landfill?
According to Planet Ark, as many as 1.8 million mattresses end up in general waste in Australia each year, where each one takes up almost 0.75 cubic metres of valuable space and may spend over 100 years breaking down in landfill.
As many as 1.8 million mattresses end up in general waste in Australia each year … and may spend over 100 years breaking down in landfill
CHOICE expert Peter Zaluzny says the design of mattresses also makes them unwieldy additions to the general waste at your local tip.
“They’re big sponges and in landfill they get heavy, which makes them difficult to move. It’s also best to avoid putting any sort of manufactured stuff in landfill, because when it gets rained on, the fillings inside can leak out with the water runoff.”
This is especially troubling when you consider that many of the main components inside a mattress have recycling potential, as Soft Landings’ Chris Richards explains.
“By sending to landfill, you straight away lose all of the value in the mattress through the recoverable components: polyurethane foam and steel springs,” says Richards.
On any given day, Soft Landing has as many as 30 trucks bringing in up to a thousand mattresses to its recycling facilities across Australia
“We manually deconstruct them by hand, pull the outer layers off, recover the usable foam and the steel spring sets,” Richards says.
Nationwide Charities Accepting Mattress Donations
Goodwill Industries
Goodwills across the country may take your used mattress if in good shape and offer many local drop-off locations for mattress donation.
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army offers scheduled pick-ups with load hauling trucks for mattress donations. There may be a 2 week to a month waitlist.
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity is a worldwide organization dedicated to helping people find a safe place to live and may accept mattress donations.
Furniture Bank Assoc.
Each Furniture Bank operates independently and donation pickup requirements vary. Most pickups are available within a 15-20 mile radius.
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Mattress Age And Quality
Think back to when you first got this mattress, what year was it? Most mattresses are good for 7 to eight years, but if you are over 40 you may want to replace it closer to every 5 years. Remember when the last time you flipped the mattress was. It is good to flip a mattress frequently. If you recently flipped your mattress and it is still uncomfortable, this mattress is probably past its lifespan.
Hire A Disposal Company To Dispose Of A Mattress
Research your options before jumping into one. A reputable company will take the time to ask you questions and find out which disposal option will best serve you.
They should also be able to offer you a quote or estimate. Make sure to choose a company that is transparent about the price range you can expect, and that is genuinely interested in finding you the best possible deal.
Also make sure you work with a company that is familiar with residential disposal, as a less informed one could cause you to rack up fines if you do not take the proper steps.
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Can An Old Mattress Cause Allergies
Yes, old mattresses often cause allergies. If you have allergy symptoms only at night time, your mattress could be infested with dust mites! They are one of the most common household allergens and like to hide in the cotton folds of your mattress. If you think this is the case, its best to get rid of the mattress immediately and get a new one that is dust mite resistant.
- Inner-Spring Mattresses
