We bet you have never thought about the fate of your mattress once you have got rid of it. Both the mattress industry and the Sleep Council strongly recommend that you replace a mattress every eight years, because by this time it will have lost much of its original comfort and support.
In the UK alone, an incredible 7.5 million mattresses are disposed of every year, that’s enough to fill Wembley Stadium 5 times over! The sad fact is that the majority of these mattresses are sent to landfill. This is an important thing to remember, as mattresses are mostly made up of non-biodegradable and wasted materials. It’s certainly not difficult to imagine the significant impact this has on our environment.
As most mattresses contain similar types of material let’s have a look at each one:
However thankfully, there is a solution and several companies in UK now work in partnership with The Furniture Recycling Group (TFRG), one of the biggest recycling services in the country.
Currently, TFRG are able to recycle an impressive 7,000 mattresses every week – that’s over 350,000 every year! In fact, over the last four years, TFRG have managed to save a volume in landfill of 4,720 double decker buses – this would fill Big Ben’s tower over 114 times!
Working to reduce the numbers of mattresses sent to landfill, the Furniture Recycling Group separates out individual mattress components. These are then distributed to industries that can benefit from these raw materials.
Remarkably, by choosing to recycle, 100% of your old mattress can avoid landfill!
As with all industries there is now a drive towards making mattresses out of safer materials, such as natural latex, bamboo and organic cotton and none contain harsh flame retardants or toxic chemicals.
Mattresses made from 100% Certified Organic Latex are great – natural latex is compostable and 100% biodegradable. Once your mattress has reached its use-by date, you can simply cut it up and place it in your compost heap.
As with all these things you may have to pay a little more but it is worth it in the long term for you and the environment.
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