Any thoughts?

I was surfing around today trying to find some options for mattress disposal/reuse etc, and found out that a few states have implemented recycling programs geared towards keeping them out of landfills. Most of these are set up at non-profit or not for profit organizations. I know I personally get tired of seeing them thrown on the road side or dumped at goodwill. Anyone on here have any experience with the programs?

In CT when we purchases a new mattress we were charged a "fee" for recycling the old one ( even if we did not have an old one) I think that means we could have turned the old one in where we bought the new one and they would have to take it ?
No sure since our town landfill also has a trailer to put them in at no cost to residents.

Originally Posted by Kalvlin

In CT when we purchases a new mattress we were charged a "fee" for recycling the old one ( even if we did not have an old one) I think that means we could have turned the old one in where we bought the new one and they would have to take it ?
No sure since our town landfill also has a trailer to put them in at no cost to residents.

I have also seen some municipalities charging a $15 fee to dispose of them at landfills

In Toledo, OH I've personally seen people strip mattress and box spring fabric and dump the metal off at the yard. I personally wouldn't try to get involved in a mess like used mattresses even if it would be for a good cause, simply because of the bedbug issue that seems to be more prevalent now than ever. Just my $0.02

Indeed...it was just a passing thought...something I felt the need to discuss. Just wondering with all the money that the "STATES" Involved are charging Mattress sellers where does it go? and who really benefits? I have found a solution to my dilemma. Quite the positive one at that! I will post pics when all is said and done! Thanks!

Originally Posted by miked

With the fee it still goes into the landfill. Unless the government agency incinerates the mattress and recycles any steel inside.

That seems to bear true in this area. There are two municipalities here on the island. They have different personalities and each has it's own way of doing things.

Municipality #1 : They have something called the " demo" pile. They charge ten cents a pound for all the things going into it. ie: box springs, furniture, big plastic things like the kiddie pools, asphalt shingles, and so on. It gets hauled off on a regular basis to be landfilled at an approved facility.

Municipality #2: They have the demo pile but it comes out of the tax base. There's no direct charge for disposal. It's pretty expensive to pay to have it hauled off and landfilled. The town fathers balked at the cost and just let the pile grow and grow. It became a health hazard to the people working at the transfer station. All of those mattresses got wet and moldy with black mold. When the wind was right it would blow all of the nasty in their direction. They finally did get it taken care of, but it was well over 80 grand to get the site cleaned up.

Both towns are pretty active in recycling .... each in their own way .... but neither has a recycling program for the box springs yet.

I don't remember many details, but the program was implemented recently in California. It's similar to the TV/Monitor program here. I do believe individuals get paid from recycling centers for their mattress. The recycling center is reimbursed for both the payment to the individual and the cost of recycling the mattress. It's still new, but I foresee businesses opening up similar to the "Cash for your old TV" places where middlemen jump in to get a few bucks out of the deal.

I've stripped a bunch here in MA. I usually go into CT to a scrap yard. They used to take them stripped and whole, but now you must cut them in half and then in small sections. Reason given is that they get caught up in the next step of the process and cause havoc in the machines. I'm guessing whoever the yard sells to, has problems processing them as a whole unit.

Originally Posted by magnumrecycling

In Toledo, OH I've personally seen people strip mattress and box spring fabric and dump the metal off at the yard. I personally wouldn't try to get involved in a mess like used mattresses even if it would be for a good cause, simply because of the bedbug issue that seems to be more prevalent now than ever. Just my $0.02

I've been involved in municipal, state, and regional conversations about mattress recycling in the Northeast. As far as states like MA and CT go, there is actually Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in play, whereby the industries are expected to find ways to deal with the eventual waste they are presenting. You are correct; new mattress sales have a recycling fee worked into the final price, which does go to pay for the (theoretically) proper means of handling, scrapping, recycling, and landfilling of the mattresses components. Another such program in our area is PaintCare, whereby new paint purchases have a small surcharge (about $.50-$1.50, based on volume) attached, which goes to fund the recycling and/or proper disposal of both oil and latex coatings. Maine has this, too, as do Minnesota and (I think) Michigan. Mattress EPR hasn't caught fire like you think it might, based on how widespread and troublesome they have become to the solid waste landscape.

It's really about how unreluctant the manufacturers are and how serious the state government is, when it comes down to it. VT tried to get an EPR measure through the House for tire handling. It died on the floor when the industry wouldn't play ball. The thing is, some manufacturers know that bans or government-mandated handling are a reality but they also know that there are legacy wastes still in the world. One of the reasons EPR for tube TV's has been relatively easy to push is that no one is really making more of them; it's a fixed cost, in some respects. PaintCare has been a wildly successful program but it runs at a serious deficit; people bringing paint to recycle it are still dredging old cans out of their great-uncle's basement, paint which was never bought with the surcharge attached. But if Nokian or Cooper tacked on $3 to every new tire sale, they know it would never work out in their favor. People would just drive over to the nearest state to buy their tires, without an EPR fee, and then bring them to a recycling location, in-state, to unload the junk for free. On top of that, if tire recycling became free/low-cost, every collection point in the area would be swamped with tires from river bottoms and manure pile-covers, most of them having been bought well before the appropriate fees had been applied and all are now on the manufacturer's dime. Plus, with very few actual recycling outlets for scrap tire rubber, you can't expect to make anything back, that way (paint doesn't share that problem, fortunately). A car yard near me is rumoured to have more than a million tires in piles around their facility (only 750,000 of which have been documented). Quite a sh*t sandwich for the tire-makers to eat. That's the thinking that killed the tire bill in our state, anyway. IDK; I like to think that if you're flogging tires with less than two years of useful life for $80 a pop, there's room in the margin for a little responsibility. But that's none of my business...

In my opinion, a person interested in interacting with mattress recycling should opt to buy a shredder. They are not cheap but they are by far the fastest way to tear through mattresses and for a small operation, that is key. Steel is the obvious scrap in the output but the PUR foam holds some value, too, though you have to really search for buyers. The fabric can be baled and sold to rag manufacturers but the volumes necessary will probably not pan out for a small operation (I think Conigliaro in MA handles them and probably has outlets). The unsung treasure of mattress recycling is the lumber. C&D recycling is on the rise and no few markets are hungry for clean, unpainted wood. A local but large commercial hauler offered me a 40-yd rolloff and free pickup as long as I wanted, provided I could keep filling it with demolition waste, lumber in particular. Another outfit with whom I am familiar is UTEC, in MA, who employs at-risk youth to fully d-man mattresses, a much better way to get to the lumber than shredding but it sure eats up the man-hours. My real reasoning for a shredder is that a person owning such equipment could rent their services out to town bulky waste collection days, furniture wholesalers, and other places with mattress inventory. Doing it this way saves on tipping fees (last I checked, it cost upwards of $20 to landfill a single mattress, depending on your location) for everyone and, importantly, it downplays the problem waste mattresses have become, which is exactly what the mattress industry wants so that they don't have to deal with any more EPR legislation. Carpet manufacturers in CA, for example, are actually offering about $2M to state carpeting stores and installers who agree to collect and recycle carpeting on their own, just so that the CA government doesn't push the whole problem back on them. I would think anything that offers an alternative would be a valuable service, even if what was reclaimed was little to nothing, just based on how difficult an costly mattresses are as a waste item.