Why I paid $95 to recycle a mattress — and you might, too

I paid $95 to recycle a mattress.

It could sound odd, foolish even, to pay a lot to eliminate a run-of-the-mill family merchandise.

However the economics of mattress recycling illustrate why it may be troublesome — and expensive — to be an eco-friendly shopper within the U.S.

People discard about 15 million to twenty million mattresses every year, in keeping with the Mattress Recycling Council. That is a median of about 50,000 per day.

Most find yourself in a landfill, specialists mentioned.

Mattresses are “one of many hardest issues to recycle,” mentioned Alicia Marseille, a sustainability and round financial system professional at Arizona State College.

“It is a large waste stream,” she mentioned.

My mattress — a queen-sized hand-me-down from household and doubtless near 20 years outdated — was in determined want of alternative. The typical mattress has a lifespan of about 14 years, from manufacture to shopper disposal, in keeping with MRC.

However what to do with it?

I reside in Brooklyn, the place residents can eliminate a mattress at no cost as a part of routine trash pickup.

As somebody who meticulously tries to chop waste in on a regular basis life — avoiding single-use plastics, composting meals scraps — it was painful to consider mine losing away in a landfill.

“When you put your mattress in a landfill, it will in all probability be there for a whole bunch of years, simply sitting there,” mentioned Meg Romero, the recycling and litter management superintendent for Charles County, Maryland.

Certainly, I can discover a new dwelling for it as an alternative, I assumed.

Unsuitable.

After two weeks of unsuccessful dispatches to native homeless shelters, organizations like The Salvation Military and Goodwill, and group boards like Purchase Nothing and The Freecycle Community, I might exhausted my persistence for a free-giveaway possibility.

People who donate a mattress to sure teams could possibly declare a tax deduction for its honest market worth on their federal tax return. Taxpayers would want to itemize their deductions to profit.

Did I neglect to achieve out to some events? Most likely. May another person have totally different outcomes? Sure. However my private cost-benefit evaluation dictated that it was time to ditch donations.

I researched some recycling choices, and chosen Renewable Recycling Inc., based mostly in East Rockaway, New York. There are few different U.S. firms that do such work, specialists mentioned. A listing compiled by MRC lists simply 55.

Greater than 75% of a mattress is recyclable, in keeping with MRC. Some firms put it at nearer to 90%.

Recyclers strip them of supplies like wooden, metal, and numerous foams and fibers, and promote them into secondary markets.

The supplies are then re-purposed: Shredded foam and fibers as carpet padding, animal beds or insulation; wooden as mulch and gas; and is derived as scrap metal, for instance.

“When you can recycle, it is going to give these supplies one other life for use as one thing else,” mentioned Romero of Charles County, which launched a mattress recycling program for residents on Aug. 1.

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That re-use has different environmental advantages. For instance, there is a decreased must extract or supply new supplies for manufacturing, which cuts greenhouse gasoline emissions and water and vitality use, specialists mentioned.

Unusually, the Charles County service is basically free for residents. They’ll deliver two objects a day — like a mattress and field spring — to the Charles County Landfill for recycling for no cost. Extra objects value $10 per piece.

Residents recycled greater than 900 mattresses in September, over double officers’ estimates, Romero mentioned. The county contracts with a Baltimore-based firm, Deco Options, to handle the method.

Charles County’s motivations weren’t purely environmental, although.

Mattresses are cumbersome, taking over treasured actual property within the county landfill, Romero mentioned.

“A landfill is a restricted, finite house,” mentioned Peter Conway, the president of Spring Again Colorado, a recycler based mostly in Commerce Metropolis. “They wish to put issues that break down, issues which can be simply compactible.”

“Mattresses are form of the antithesis of that,” Conway mentioned. He expects to divert 8 million kilos of waste from Colorado landfills this 12 months.

The $95 payment I in the end paid to Renewable Recycling is “fairly customary” amongst mattress recyclers, Conway mentioned.

The expense coated mattress pickup from my Brooklyn condominium and transport to the corporate’s warehouse in Oceanside, New York. (I might have saved $55 by dropping off the mattress myself, however I do not personal a automobile.)

Spring Again Colorado additionally prices $40 for every mattress and field spring {that a} shopper drops off. An extra payment of $60 or extra applies, relying on the journey distance, if a shopper asks for dwelling pickup.

Mattresses are more durable to recycle than different objects like plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard, mentioned Romero, of Charles County.

“They’re all made fully in another way,” Romero mentioned. “There is not any uniform development, and there are a number of several types of supplies used to make one mattress.”

The method is extra time- and labor-intensive, she mentioned. Typically, staff should break them down by hand.

For instance, cotton remnants should be picked off metal mattress springs earlier than it may be shredded or baled on the market to scrap markets, in keeping with the Mattress Recycling Council. Staples additionally must be faraway from wooden frames earlier than going to market, it mentioned. Every coil in a “pocket coil mattress” is individually wrapped in material and should be separated, Romero mentioned.

Moreover, mattress supplies yield solely “modest revenues” when offered, Reid Lifset, a analysis scholar and resident fellow in industrial ecology at Yale Faculty of the Setting, wrote in an e-mail.

These revenues typically depend upon fluctuating commodity costs.

“We do not set the worth for a ton of froth or metal,” Conway mentioned. “Someday we’d get 18 cents a pound and the following week solely get 10 cents.”

There should even be a market demand for these commodities — and generally these markets aren’t close by, including to transport prices.

For instance, Spring Again Colorado used to ship all its foam and ticking to a recycling heart in California, Conway mentioned. It value the corporate about $2,000 to ship every truck load.

A few 12 months in the past, that California companion stopped accepting shipments: Demand had dried up for materials, Conway mentioned. He referred to as firms as far afield as Mexico, Canada, India and Egypt to search out different placement, however in the end discovered a brand new companion in Texas, he mentioned.

“It is fairly razor-thin margins we function on,” Conway mentioned.

Spring Again Colorado earns further income from mattress pickups and drop-offs, and from partnerships with companies and municipalities, he mentioned.

“Somebody has to pay,” mentioned Marseille, of Arizona State College. “It normally falls to customers.”

Some states and municipalities are making it cheaper for customers to recycle their mattresses.

For instance, Charles County, Maryland, funds its fledgling mattress program largely with taxpayer cash. About $150 of residents’ taxes are allotted to the county’s Environmental Sources division every year, for providers like curbside recycling, disposal of yard waste, oil and anti freeze — and now mattress recycling, Romero mentioned.

Three states — California, Connecticut and Rhode Island — have enacted mattress recycling legal guidelines since 2013. The same program in Oregon is launching Jan. 1, 2025.

The legal guidelines require the mattress trade to develop and administer state applications to gather and recycle discarded mattresses at no cost.

The initiative is funded by customers, although.

People and establishments (like motels and dormitories) in such states pay a payment every time they purchase a mattress: $10.50 in California, $11.75 in Connecticut, $20.50 in Rhode Island and $22.50 in Oregon, mentioned Amanda Wall, a spokesperson for the Mattress Recycling Council. MRC is a nonprofit created by the Worldwide Sleep Merchandise Affiliation, a mattress trade commerce group, to construct and run these state applications.

Retailers ahead these charges to MRC, which funds the buyer recycling efforts. Finally, the charges subsidize free mattress drop-off and recycling at any MRC-funded assortment website in taking part states, Wall mentioned. (Recyclers can nonetheless cost a payment for mattress pickup, she mentioned.)

The mattress trade has pushed for related laws in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia this 12 months, and plans to maintain working with these state legislatures in 2025, Wall mentioned.

The legal guidelines are an instance of “prolonged producer accountability” insurance policies states have adopted extra broadly, forcing firms to bear some end-of-life accountability for his or her merchandise, mentioned Marseille.

Some query whether or not customers shoulder an excessive amount of of the burden proper now.

“Firms aren’t making, for essentially the most half, extra easy-to-recycle merchandise,” Conway mentioned. “It is on the buyer to determine how one can responsibly do away with their objects in a acutely aware means.”

He thinks it must be simpler and extra inexpensive for customers to recycle to advertise that conduct.

“On the finish of the day, you probably have two choices, and one is throw it in a gap within the floor, and the opposite is recycle it, 95% of the individuals will go along with that cheaper possibility,” Conway added.