Recycle a mattress?

I bet if you've had a home for more than 10 years you've faced disposing of a worn out mattress. Perhaps you're like me and have had a home for 47 years and have faced this problem more than once. Previously I was fortunate enough to find them homes.  Perhaps you are a relatively young couple and you're trying to replace the old bed a relative gave you to get you started. In either case disposing of an inner-spring mattress is a major headache.  Well, fret no more.

It is hard enough to find a home for a good full-size, queen or king size mattress, but it is down right impossible to find a home for an odd-sized mattress that was specially made for an antique bed at least 25 years ago.  This one measured 71 inches by 50 inches.

I did some research on the internet and found that 90% of an inner-spring mattress can be recycled. The one article listed a couple of non-profit organizations that recycle mattresses to make money - St Vincent de Paul and Goodwill. I called the local chapter of those organizations in Evansville only to learn that they don't do that in Evansville.  Too bad.  Not sure how much money they would get for the materials, but it isn't as daunting a project as one would expect and an experience individual could do a number of mattresses in a single day.

Stripping the padding.

Obviously, if you noticed the name of my blog site, I could not face the idea of taking the mattress to the dump and leaving it in a landfill. I had no idea what I was doing but that wasn't going to stop me. Worst case scenario . . . I would make a big mess that would have to be carted off to the landfill. That didn't happen.

If you want to recycle responsibly here's how to do it.

The inner-spring mattress I had special made over 25 years ago had four layers over the spring system. I quickly appreciated why a good inner-spring mattress costs so much.  Of course the first layer you will encounter is the cover.  Mine was a heavy fabric made out of cotton, so it was 100% recyclable. A box knife around the edge and it was off.  I used it to bundle the next layer.

Under the cover is the padding. Again, mine was a natural material which meant that it was 100% recyclable.  It was quite dense and 3-4 inches thick.  The mattress buttons are each attached to a corresponding button on the other side of the mattress via a strong cord. You will eventually get to the point where you have to cut the cords. Otherwise the padding strips off easily, can be tied up in the fabric cover.

Removing the protective cover
from the springs. 

Over the metal portion of the mattress is a layer of material which reminds me of the packing blankets sold by U-Haul. This was a thick and substantial material that was obviously designed to buffer the padding and cover from the metal system interior. It was attached to the spring system by metal hooks.  Once detached this material was easily folded and dropped into the recycling bin.

I don't know if it is common with all inner-spring mattresses but this one had a layer of thin wire over the springs. The wires were attached to heavy hemp cord that was attached to the spring system with metal hooks. The wires were about 4 inches apart - maybe less. I can only guess that this layer was intended to keep materials from being pushed into the spring system by the weight of the sleeper. The worst part of this layer was getting the metal hooks open.

Now all that's left is the spring system. I took one look at that and knew that I wasn't going to dismantle this puppy any further.  There was too much heavy twisted wire. I figure that I'll just take that to a metal recycling center as a whole.  If you don't have a truck, you may need to go at it with a good heavy pair of wire cutters.

The spring system

In well under an hour I had reduced the mattress to a bag of stuffing, two folded sheets of heavy spring protection cover, and a bare wire/spring skeleton.  I put everything but the wire in the recycling bin and set the springs aside. I'll toss them in the back of the truck one of these days and go to the metal recycling center.

Everything in the recycling bin

I think it would be a good service and a profitable endeavor for a non-profit organization to recycle old inner-spring mattresses.  If you have a mattress but no one to do it for you, don't worry. Do it yourself and be proud of the waste you kept out of the landfill.