What To Do With Your Old Mattresses?!
Dear Friends & Neighbors,
What to do with an old mattress? (from story of Princess and Pea by Hans Christian Andersen, drawn by Edmund Dulac), presented at: WindermereSun.com
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
Since 2011, the Mustard Seed began recycling mattresses in order to keep their doors open to help the Central Florida community. The Mustard Seed have been responsible for deconstructing 90,000 mattresses and box springs, saving 1.9 million cubic feet of landfill space, reducing dumping expenses and protecting our environment. Mattresses are bulky, do not compact well in landfills, and they create flammable air pockets. Therefore, they are a nuisance for solid waste handlers. Besides fulfilling the mission of assisting families to keep Florida safe and clean, the Mustard Seed’s mattress recycling program also offers employment opportunities and provides on the job training to those otherwise would have been unemployed.
The Mustard Seeds services provide pickup, transportation, deconstruction, reporting of mattresses recycled, and welcomes hotels, schools, mattress stores, cruise lines, and individual homes for a competitive price. By using The Mustard Seed’s services, you are ensured that these mattresses will not be going back into the secondary market and will be properly recycled. For more information on mattress recycling, please call: 407-875-2040.
Besides recycling mattresses, the Mustard Seed also recycle various other materials for Central Florida residents:
- computer
- appliance (non working)
- cell phones
- clothing
In recognition of their mattress recycling operation, The Mustard Seed of Central Florida received the Sustainable Florida 2014 Non-profit Best Practice Award for outstanding achievements and excellence in helping to create a sustainable economic, environmental and social future for Florida.
Don’t forge that that there will be a Mattress Recycling Meetup at The Mustard Seed on every second Saturday of the month, between 9:00 am-12:00 pm, at The Mustard Seed of Central Florida, 12 Mustard Seed Ln, Orlando, FL, 407-875-2040, email: [email protected] (off of Kennedy Blvd. between Forest City Road and Wymore Road).
In USA alone, 15-20 million mattresses are disposed of every year (that’s a lot of landfill space!), so when it comes to the time for you or me to replace our old mattresses, let’s see what we can do to recycle our old ones:
- Check if the company we purchased our mattresses from has a take-back program in place, if not, then go to 2. below.
- Check on recycling center locator (and click on “HOUSEHOLD” in left margin under “QUICK SEARCH”, then enter our zip code) to track down recycling centers near us. Even though mattress recycling centers are limited in USA, but the number of programs is growing. Any recycler or reuse agency in our community that accepts mattresses should also accept our used box springs, the foam used in memory foam, latex foam, and TempurPedic mattresses. But be sure to ask/call first before lugging our mattresses down to the recycling center.
- Check out the Freecycle Network, where there are now 9 million members in more than 110 countries, encouraging people to participate in a culture of giving and sharing. Here in Florida, we have quite a few Freecycling centers. So we may be able to utilize these centers to give and share (mattresses or any other items). In May of 2003, Deron Beal of Tucson, AZ wanted to donate a bed but couldn’t find any local organizations to accept one. But Deron wanted to create a way for people to give away items that still had value and not end up in landfill. So he gathered a small group of friends interested in sharing things they no longer needed. That initial group has grown into the current 9 million members…32,000 items are gifted, reused, and kept out of the landfill (equivalent to over one thousand tons) each day because of the existence of Freecycle Network. Impressive!
- If we simply cannot find a recycler near us that will accept our old mattress, we can also take it apart and recycle the component materials ourselves (some parts such as the steel coils can make us money at the recycling center). Remember that 90% of the material in an average mattress can be recycled. After a mattress or box spring is disassembled, the steel cage, wood frame, and cotton outer layer of the box spring, foam used in memory foam, latex foam and Tempur-Pedic mattresses are completely recyclable. It’s just a matter of finding a recycler that accepts them. Most recyclers that accept mattresses would also accept foam material. But always make sure to call ahead before lugging the mattress down to the recycling center. The metal component of the coil is definitely valuable and can be repurposed for other uses.
- Since more than 50,000 mattresses end up in U.S. landfills every day if we don’t make an effort in recycling-reusing them, let’s encourage our local/regional/state/ province/ country to also establish programs such as these: a. Bye Bye Mattress is a mattress recycling program operating in Connecticut and due to launch in California and Rhode Island. Established by law and operated by the nonprofit Mattress Recycling Council, the program uses a recycling fee collected on each mattress and box spring sold to make recycling easier in our communities. Whether a city picks up your discarded mattress, a retailer takes it back with your new purchase or you drop it off, the Bye Bye Mattress program diverts your old product from waste to recycling. Now, our landfills and incinerators will be less crowded as old mattresses are recycled into new, useful products. b. Mattress Recycling Council was formed by the industry to operate recycling programs in states which have enacted mattress recycling laws. Connecticut’s program launched in May 2015, and programs in California and Rhode Island have begun in 2016. Each state’s program is funded by a recycling fee that is collected when a mattress or box spring is sold. The fees pay for the transportation and recycling of the mattresses.
HOURS OF OPERATION
Office:
Monday through Friday: 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.
Furniture Bank and Furniture Pick-Ups:
Monday through Friday: 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.
The Seed Boutique:
Monday through Friday: 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.
Saturday: *The Mustard Seed does open other Saturdays of the month to volunteers. Sign up to volunteer, now!
If your group would like to volunteer with Mustard Seed, please contact
Volunteer Coordinator, [email protected] at:
407-875-2040 ext. 117 or
Please let the Mustard Seed know if you need a time outside these hours for furniture service, and they will work to accommodate you if at all possible.
The Mustard Seed gratefully accept donations at the warehouse from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Monday through Friday.
Contact the Mustard Seed to at 407.875.2040 to schedule your furniture pickup
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker
More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
Any comments, suggestions, concerns regarding this post will be welcomed at [email protected]
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