Mattresses are a major component of the bulky waste problem. Due to their size and shape they are seen as difficult and expensive to dispose of for both businesses and consumers.
Instead of recycling or disposing of mattresses properly, many choose to fly tip, making up around seven per cent of all illegally dumped waste in the last year across the UK. Fly-tipping has reached epidemic proportions in England, with 1.13 million incidents recorded across England’s major towns and cities in the last year, a 16% increase on the previous 12 months1.
From soaring costs to misinformation, consumers and businesses are facing significant challenges when it comes to disposing of bulky waste.
Challenges of mattress recycling
The key challenges to mattress recycling include cost, transport and lack of information.
Cost
Consumers can face a one-off cost of £10 to £20 for the local council to pick up bulky waste from their home, meanwhile businesses may be charged by cubic yard or by the truck load which means costs can begin to soar while very little waste is disposed of.
Transport
Moving a mattress anywhere is a challenge for consumers unless they have the appropriate transport, and for businesses this issue increases with the significant number of mattresses they need to move. Many brands become reliant on large scale vehicles to transport bulky mattresses which can leave them open to cost increases and delays depending on vehicle availability.
Information
While there is more information becoming available, for years there hasn’t been a lot of guidance around how to dispose of or recycle bulky waste such as mattresses. This has led to fly tipping or mattresses going straight to overcrowded landfill sites. With recycling becoming hot on manufacturers and retailers’ agendas, more information about recycling schemes and local bulky waste support is becoming available.
How to dispose of a mattress
There are various ways to dispose of a mattress, whether it’s through a retailer scheme, local recycling centre, or using a recycling service.
Retailer scheme
In recent years many big name brand retailers have introduced recycling or disposal schemes for those consumers buying a mattress from them including Bensons for Beds, Dreams and Dunelm. For a small fee consumers can solve their mattress disposal problem and have their old mattress taken away on the same day as their new one gets delivered.
Local recycling centre
Consumers can also check their local household waste recycling centres to see if they take mattresses and whether they are disposed of or recycled. While taking your mattress to the tip could be convenient for you, it does add to the UK’s landfill problem as some centres around the UK can’t recycle them.
Each year 8.5 million mattresses are sent to landfill amounting to 300,0002 tonnes of bulky waste taking up limited space in refuse centres nationwide.
Recycling service
Independent recycling services are the best way to sustainably dispose of mattresses. The services provide a cost-effective solution to transporting and recycling bulky mattresses, while diverting them away from toxic landfill sites.
The Furniture Recycling Group (TFRG) is a circular economy specialist that provides this sustainable solution; providing business disposal of mattresses by recycling and rejuvenating mattresses across the country. We divert 100% of mattresses sent to us away from landfill through recycling or reuse, using circular economy principles to ensure no materials are wasted.
Over 3 million mattresses have been diverted from landfill using this method, a figure that’s increasing on a daily basis as TFRG works with some of the UK’s biggest brands, businesses and local authorities, including Simba and John Lewis.
Discover how our recycling service is helping a range of businesses and brands to divert their waste away from landfill tfrgroup.co.uk
