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Where To Take Unwanted Mattresses

How To Recycle A Mattress

Kansas City organization asks for mattress donations to help families in need
  • It might take a few phone calls, but you will likely find a recycling facility in your area that accepts whole mattresses. Some cities contract with haulers who will pick up your mattress and recycle it for you during certain times of the year for a service charge . Connecticut, Rhode Island and California have all enacted laws that allow residents to recycle their mattress for free or a small fee through Extended Producer Responsibility programs.

    If you are struggling to find a place to recycle your mattress, ask local universities for suggestions, since they frequently partner with recycling services that can handle large items like mattresses. The can point you in the right direction.

  • DIY mattress recycling: If you have the time and want to take a DIY approach, tear your mattress apart yourself and take the recyclable parts to your local recycling center. Heres what you can recycle:
  • Wood frame
  • Polyurethane foam
  • Outer foam
  • Repurpose it: If youre a DIYer, you might be happy to discover all the cool things you can make with materials from your old mattress. Use the springs to make fun outdoor art projects, wine racks or ornaments the padding for a dog bed the fabric for cushion covers and the thread for sewing projects.
  • 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.

    Ways To Donate Your Mattress

    By Geoff McKinnenCertified Sleep Coach

    Your new, high-quality mattress has arrived at your doorstep, and you are ready to set it up and start getting a better nights sleep. But what about your old bed?

    Your new, high-quality mattress has arrived at your doorstep, and you are ready to set it up and start getting a better nights sleep. But what about your old bed? Discarded mattresses harm the environment. In fact, Americans dispose of more than 50,000 mattresses a day, with the majority of these beds ending up in landfills. With one bed taking up about 40-cubic feet of space, this represents a significant burden on landfills.

    This environmental strain makes it more critical than ever to find ways to donate or recycle your old mattress. Fortunately, several organizations make this process easy and convenient. Read on to find out 5 ways to donate your mattress and help it find a new home.

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    Ways To Dispose Of Your Mattress

    If possible, we want to avoid leaving old mattresses out for trash. You may be surprised to learn that this can actually be pretty damaging to the environment. TheMattress Recycling Council has estimated that in total, Americans discard 15-20 million mattresses each year. This annual amount is equivalent to 132,000 square miles of landfill space. In an effort to cut down on all of this waste, we want to encourage you to use alternative means of disposing. Youll find some helpful tips on how to do so below.

    Taking The Mattress To The Landfill

    The SLEEP REVOLUTION Uratex Premium Mattress Collection ...

    If your is able to transport your mattress themselves, you may want to take it directly to the landfill rather than waiting for a trash pickup service to collect it. Your local landfill or dump may charge a fee to accept the mattress.

    Pros

    You may be able to take a mattress to the landfill on your own time, rather than waiting for a scheduled pickup appointment or bulk trash day.

    Cons

    You need to transport the mattress themselves, which will typically require a large vehicle. You may have to pay a fee for the landfill to accept the mattress.

    Additionally, this is not a great option from an environmental standpoint. Landfills are already overflowing with waste, and mattresses contribute to that problem. According to a Seattle Times article, mattresses can cause issues for landfill equipment during garbage compaction: Mattresses dont compact well. Even worse, the mattress springs pop out and get tangled in the equipment, often damaging it.

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    How Nixxit Removes Your Mattress

    The Nixxit team will come out between your 2-hour window scheduled and conduct a brief walk-through. At this time, show us the mattress or other furniture items that you would like to have removed. From there, we will provide you with a no-obligation estimate to remove your items.

    Fortunately, the majority of all mattresses can be recycled when properly dismantled. So, while other junk haulers will typically just take mattresses to landfills, Nixxit will take your unwanted mattress and recycle or even repurpose as much as we can!

    Learn more about our environmental commitment.

    Can I Recycle My Broken Down Mattress Rather Than Throwing It Away

    Sure. There are several recycling programs that can help you get rid of your mattress if you dont want to leave it at the dump. Check out places like Earth 911, , and the International Sleep Products Association for information on local recycling centers near you.

    If a recycling facility cant take your whole mattress, that facility might still accept the components if you cut the mattress apart and separate them yourself. For instance, many recycling centers take steel springs as scrap metal, and wood from box springs and mattresses can be ground into mulch by a wood repurposing program.

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    Mattress Removal In Suffolk County New York

    Do you have an old mattress or box springs you need to get rid of? It can be a challenge to dispose of these items or even haul them to your vehicle. Thats where Come Take My Junk comes in! We provide full-service mattress removal services to the Suffolk County, NY community. From start to finish, you dont have to lift a finger! We remove your old mattress and box springs, haul them into our truck, and dispose of them responsibly. Our affordable and speedy service means that you could be mattress free before you know it! You can depend on Come Take My Junk for trustworthy and reliable mattress disposal, furniture removal, appliance removal, and more! Give us a call and well help you schedule your appointment and answer any questions you might have along the way.

    Mattress Foam & Stuffing

    Woman’s Mattress Grows Mold Learn Tips to Protect Yourself

    Most mattresses contain polyurethane foam made from the oil from renewable plants like soy, castor beans, and other natural oil sources. Similarly, plant-based latex can be used to make latex foam used in mattresses.

    Recycled Foam: Can be used as biomass fuel for a renewable energy source to heat homes. Currently, there are studies underway on how to easily convert used foams back into polyols for new polyurethanes.

    Get Creative with Foam: once removed from a used mattress, polyurethane foam can be ground up, mixed with binders and formed into the foam padding used underneath wall-to-wall carpets and in other cushioning applications. You could even make a pet bed out of your unneeded foam. More foam mattress reuse projects.

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    Option : Find It A New Home

    If you find yourself in the situation where the mattress that you just replaced is practically brand-new, and you’d like to recover some of the money that you’ve invested, there are definitely some options out there for finding your old mattress a new home.

    Craigslist is an online classified advertisement site that can be found in practically every area of the world. You can place a free ad in your local area offering your mattress for sale, and people looking to buy a like new mattress can contact you directly through the site.

    and other social media platforms are also a great way to check with your own personal network to see if any of your friends or family are in the market for a new mattress. Just place a picture and description on your profile, and before you know it no more extra mattress to contend with!

    Is It Safe To Get A Donated Mattress Myself

    It should be. Many charities are quite picky about the furniture they take. However, one thing you need to worry about with any secondhand furniture is bed bugs, so its important to check for them before bringing home a donated mattress. Keep in mind bed bugs are good at hiding, so youll need to inspect all the creases in the mattress and under the buttons. You can get rid of bed bugs in a mattress, but no one wants to bring an infested mattress into their home if they can avoid it.

    Signs a mattress has bed bugs include exoskeletons, eggs, feces, tiny dark stains, and actual bugs. Contrary to popular belief, bed bugs are easily visible to the naked eyeunfed bugs are typically flat, almost round, light brown, and between 1 and 7 millimeters in length. Fed bugs will look rounder, almost like theyve been blown up like a balloon.

    When buying a used mattress, remember you likely have no way of knowing how long the mattress will last. Ask yourself if the price is worth it to get a mattress that might last only a couple of years.

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    A Few Little Stats About Mattress Recycling And Disposal Mattress Disposal And Recycling

    At the end of July 2019, the National Bed Federation , the leading trade association in the bed industry, published a report about End of Life mattresses treatment. The report looked at the disposal and recycling of mattresses from 2012 through 2017 and provided some interesting figures. Below are some of the ones they found:

    National Furniture Bank Association

    How to Properly Dispose of a Mattress

    The National Furniture Bank Association operates an online directory listing different facilities currently accepting furniture donations. You can use this database to locate a Furniture Bank to drop off your gently used mattresssome Furniture Bank facilities might also allow you to schedule a pickup appointment for a volunteer or team member to come to you. Once youve donated your mattress, it will then be placed with a family or individual in need of a new bed.

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    Extending The Life Of Your Mattress

    There are a few ways you can extend the life of your old mattress but its not recommended. Old mattresses tend to have sleepers tossing and turning during the night, due to sagging and more. They also have the ability to negatively affect a person’s overall health. Dust mites are unfortunately a common mattress issue that can cause many health problems, especially in allergy and asthma sufferers.

    Sleeping on an old mattress can even be stressful, proven by a bed-based study which concluded that sleeping on a new mattress increases sleep quality and reduces back discomfort.

    Why Its So Hard To Get Rid Of Used Mattresses

    Youd think that when you return your Casper or Leesa mattress after the trial period that it finds a second life, maybe with a person in need, perhaps recycled into something else soft and squishy. But the sad truth is that most mattresses these days still end up in the landfill. Charities often wont take them for fear of spreading bedbug infestations, recycling isnt profitable enough to be common, and most states dont have effective recycling programs in the first place.

    I know this because Ive had to get rid of 20 mattresses over the past two years after testing them for Wirecutters guide to online mattresses. Because the online mattress companies offer a trial period and having buyers ship a mattress back is impractical, they typically offer to work with buyers to donate their unwanted mattresses. But that doesnt always work out. Ive tried donating to more than a dozen local charities, and only recently have I found success, through an organization helping Hurricane Maria survivors in Buffalo, New York, where I live.

    Recycling mattresses is easier in states where the Mattress Recycling Council administers mattress recycling programs: currently Rhode Island, Connecticut, and California.

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    Other Signs You Need A New Mattress

    In addition to the age of your mattress, there are other factors that can dictate when it may be time to get a new one. If any of the following apply, it might be time for that mattress upgrade:

  • Body Aches: You wake up feeling sore after a night’s sleep
  • Lack of Sleep: You’re not getting as much sleep or rest anymore
  • Sagging: Your mattress foam or padding has softened and offers less support
  • Wear & Tear: There are rips and holes in the mattress, perhaps even stains
  • Noisy Springs: The springs in your mattress make noise when you move perhaps you can even feel the coils
  • The signs from the list above all give a good indication of whether you should get rid of your old mattress. If you need to do that, then the question becomes: How do I go about disposing of my mattress?

    How To Donate A Mattress

    Waste in its Place – Mattress

    If your mattress is still in good condition and you think it will be accepted as a donation then the next few sections will explain the process and the possible institutions to reach, starting with the most common choice the charities.

    Donating to a charity is the most customary option because it allows you to decide exactly where you want to donate and who you choose to support.

    If your mattress has some imperfections, skip ahead. We will discuss the appropriate choices available to you, one of which still includes donating to someone in need.

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    Can You Recycle A Mattress

    At the very least, some parts of your mattress will be recyclable, and its possible that all of it will be. And yet, according to The Furniture Recycling Group, Wembley Stadium could be filled five times with the 7.5m mattresses that are discarded in the UK every year.

    While mattress recycling is relatively labour-intensive, more and more facilities capable of doing so are springing up around the UK. These facilities will break down your mattress into its recyclable components springs can then be melted down and remade into new metal products, while synthetic layers such as foam can either be used to make carpet underlay, or else can be sent to a plant where the waste can at least be converted into energy.

    Aside from taking your old mattress to your nearest recycling centre yourself, the best way to ensure your mattress is recycled is to pay for it to be collected. But whether you use the local council, the company delivering your new mattress or a specialist mattress removal company, make sure it is clearly stated that the mattress will be recycled. Otherwise, its probably best to assume that it wont be.

    Can You Donate Bed Frames To Goodwill

    In one sentence, yes, you can donate bed frames to the well-known charity organization Goodwill. This organization has more than 2,800 stores in the United States and Canada. Goodwill has clearly said that they will take dressers, sofas, tables, bed frames in the furniture category. But, they wont take waterbed frames.

    Therefore, you can donate each type of bed frame except the waterbed frames.

    What about the Habitat for Humanity? Whether will it take your bed frame or not?

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    How To Find A Mattress Disposal Near Me

    If you are confused about where to dispose of a mattress, you can contact your local waste disposal services. Google can help you locate the nearest mattress disposal services for you,

    It can cost you around $20 to dispose of your mattress. It is not a hefty sum. So, make sure you take the help of waste disposal services for proper recycling of your mattress.

    But, how to dispose of old mattresses for free? You can donate it to a charity. Some of them even have their pickup services.

    Can An Old Mattress Cause Allergies

    Brand New Unwanted Memory Foam 4ft6 Double mattress

    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.

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