.The value of your mattress goes beyond providing a good night’s sleep. You’d be shocked to know how many materials in your mattress can be recycled and re-used.
Every 8 to 10 years or so, it’s good to replace your mattress — but it’s vital that you get rid of your old one properly first.
When disposed of right, your mattress can be repurposed, and its materials can be recovered. When sentenced to a landfill, however, a mattress can actually be harmful due to its chemical components.
Mattresses are not accepted for curbside pickup, so it’s up to you to make sure that your mattress is disposed of properly.
At Junk Ninja, we make mattress removal and recycling easy — all you have to do is point us towards the bed and anything else you want removed. We’ll haul it away and make sure it is recycled properly.
We pick up mattresses, beds, bed frames, box springs — you name it. When we collect your things, you can trust that we will bring it all to our recycling centre. This is where we will make sure everything is recycled correctly.
Mattress recycling is incredibly valuable. After all, according to Green Health Care, 95 percent of the materials that comprise your mattress can be recycled.
As a green company, we are committed to responsible mattress recycling and removal — as well as the responsible removal of any other items you may have us collect.
When you decide that it’s time to get rid of your mattress, trust our mattress recycling services. After all, you want to make sure that all of your mattress’ precious materials get recovered:
The Precious Parts in a Mattress:
Mattresses are made up of precious materials that can be re-used for other purposes. According to Scientific American, a standard mattress is comprised of steel, cotton, wood and polyurethane foam.
Proper mattress recycling helps cuts down waste, resources, energy use, and costs because its materials can be used to make new products.
A city similar in size to Toronto is estimated to throw out a quarter million mattresses and box springs a year according to The Globe & Mail — that’s a lot of precious materials gone to waste.
These are the materials in your mattress and how they can be re-used when recycled properly:
Metal: A mattress’ frame and springs are often made of metal, which can be re-used for a variety of products. When a mattress is brought to a recycling plant, this material is sent to a scrap metal recycling facility where it is melted down to get re-used.
Steel: According to Better Homes and Gardens, a mattress can contain anywhere between 300 to 600 steel coils depending on its size. The bigger and better quality the mattress, the more steel it will have. Like metal, steel can be melted down and re-used.
Fabric: The fabric encasing a mattress can be processed to use in mats and other interior materials.
Wool & Cotton: Mattresses are full of stuffing, which is commonly made up of wool and cotton. These materials can be processed and used as yarn when properly recycled. It can also be used to make insulation and felt.
Foam: Some mattresses have foam stuffing. This foam can get processed, shredded and washed to be used in carpet pads, underlay and more.
Wood Frames: When wood frames are recycled, they can be burned as fuel, or can be made into chips to use as mulch.
Donating Your Mattress
Why get rid of your mattress if it can still be used by someone else? You may be surprised to know that mattresses are accepted for donation as long as they are not torn or stained.
If you are looking to donate your mattress but don’t know where to bring it, we are happy to donate it on your behalf! We offer furniture & mattress donation pick up so that we can take these things off of your hands and make sure that it all gets donated to the right place.
If your old mattress is in good condition, you can donate it to a reputable charity like Habitat for Humanity or the Salvation Army. You can also donate your mattress to a homeless shelter.
Just remember that every charity has different requirements and collection rules. For example, while some charities require that you drop off your mattress yourself, others offer a free pick-up service.
In fact, some mattress retailers even offer pick up services for donation. For example, Sleep Country has a mattress recycling program; it will pick up your old mattress and donate it to a local family in collaboration with its partnered charities.
The company’s Bed Donation and Mattress Recycling Program saves thousands of mattresses from landfills every year. Upon confirming that your mattress is in suitable shape, Sleep Country will either donate it or break it down to recycle its valuable materials.
How are Mattresses Recycled?
When a mattress is recycled, it’s cut directly in half to make its parts accessible. All of the mattress’ components are then separated. According to How Stuff Works, the mattress recycling process can be completed within 4 minutes per mattress.
A magnet is used to attract all the steel and metal parts of the mattress, and the fabric is removed as well as any other inside components.
When you enlist the help of Junk Ninja’s mattress removal services, you can rest easy knowing that we take everything we collect to a recycling centre where every individual item is addressed to ensure it is diverted properly.
When it Goes to the Landfill
According to the Mattress Recycling Council, 15 to 20 million mattresses are sent to the landfill annually – in the U.S. alone. That’s 50,000 mattresses a day.
To be honest, your mattress is too valuable to sit in a landfill — plus, when a mattress is sentenced to a landfill, it can have negative impacts on the environment:
Ground Pollution: When a mattress degrades, the environment absorbs the chemicals that it was made from, which includes bleaches and dyes.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions: As a result of the chemicals mentioned above, mattresses can release carbon dioxide and methane when left untreated in a landfill. These gasses are a huge contributor to the greenhouse effect and climate change as an extension.
They Stay Forever: One mattress takes roughly 10 years to decompose fully, and releases harmful chemicals into the atmosphere during this length process.
They Take Up Space: As if it’s not bad enough that mattresses can sit in a landfill for what seems like eons, they also take up a lot of space — specifically, 40 cubic feet of space annually in the U.S. alone.
Exceptions: Mattresses That Can’t Be Recycled
While standard mattresses including box spring mattresses are valuable and important to recycle, air mattresses and water beds are substantially less valuable in materials. It’s also worth mentioning that mattresses with bed bugs or mould also cannot be recycled.
If you are ready to get rid of any of these mattresses, you can feel guilt-free tossing them with the rest of your trash.
Burning Mattresses: Don’t Do It
You already know now that mattresses are packed with materials that can be retrieved, recycled and repurposed — so why carelessly get rid of them? It’s wasteful and in some cases harmful to the environment.
That said, one way people get rid of mattresses is by burning. When you burn your mattress, it can be detrimental to the environment and is also illegal in many cities.
If you can’t get to a charity or drop off centre to get rid of your mattress, you are much better off enlisting the help of our mattress removal services. We’ll make sure your mattress is properly recycled.
Call Junk Ninja for Mattress Removal
It doesn’t matter if you have one mattress in your basement or are purging an entire condo building of mattresses — we’ll get the job done. Our customers have trusted us to remove their mattresses for over a decade!
We are happy to get rid of your box springs, bed frames, beds and mattresses – get it all out of your house and into our truck in one go.
If you want to learn more about our process, you can get your questions answered here so that you know exactly what to expect. To make use of our mattress recycling and removal services, all you have to do is give us a call or book an appointment online.
We’ll provide you with a two-hour time slot and will give you a call 15 minutes before we get to you. Once we arrive, we’ll assess the situation and give you a no-obligation, complimentary quote. Our pricing is strictly based on how much room your stuff takes up in our truck.
When you give us the green light, we’ll haul away everything you want removed quickly and efficiently — we proudly offer same-day-service.
We’re happy to take your mattress — and all your other things — off of your hands, and make sure they are disposed of properly.
Go beyond the surface 10 Signs It’s Time to Get a New Mattress (& Get Rid of Your Old One)
With our professional junk removal services, we are proud to serve the Ottawa area. Contact Junk Ninja for the following Junk Removal Services:-
➤ Junk Removal ➤ E-Waste Removal
➤ Appliance Removal ➤ Hot Tube Removal
➤ Furniture Removal ➤ Yard Waste Removal
➤ Renovation Cleanup ➤ Deck Removal
➤ Hoarding Cleanup ➤ E-State Cleanup
Would you like to know more about the Ottawa Recycling, Removal, and Disposal Guide and also want to contribute to the fight against climate change? Find out what can be recycled in Ottawa, where to find recycling depots, and how to reduce your waste in this helpful guide.You can also check our Complete Guide to Junk Removal In Ottawa.