Every year in the U.S., 15 million mattresses are discarded, ending up in landfills or simply dumped on the sides of roads, in ravines and along riverbanks.
It is estimated that in Massachusetts alone, 12,000 tons of mattresses are dumped annually.
On Wednesday morning, MassRecycle and Sen. Kennedy hosted a legislative briefing at the State House regarding S.2388, a bill filed by Sen. Kennedy to establish a commission to study statewide mattress recycling.
Sen. Kennedy was joined by several members of the MassRecycle Board of Directors, as well as Grant Johnson the policy and Government Affairs Coordinator for the Mattress Recycling Council a non-profit that develops and implements statewide mattress recycling programs for states that have enacted mattress recycling laws.
California, Connecticut and Rhode Island already have statewide mattress recycling programs and Massachusetts should follow suit. Through just those three statewide programs, 1.5 million mattresses, made up of 52 million pounds of useful materials are kept out of the waste stream annually.
“Think of how much more can be done,” said Sen. Kennedy. “Most everything inside a mattress, from the springs to the padding, is recyclable, but many people are unaware of this. As a result, Massachusetts misses a tremendous opportunity to reduce its carbon footprint and save municipalities money each time a mattress is discarded through simple, yet effective methods that have proven to be successful at the local level.”
MassDEP has a Mattress Recycling Incentive Grant Program that has been ongoing for nearly four years. In that time, 96 cities and towns have participated, recycling 72,160 mattresses and box springs.
UTEC, a social-services agency in Lowell, has demonstrated that mattress recycling can work and that there is high demand for such a service in our communities. Residents and businesses simply need to schedule a pick-up order online, at a nominal cost, and a crew of UTEC’s youth workers will collect the disposed mattresses and bring them to their warehouse in Lawrence. From there, the mattresses are then cut and stripped down to salvage the materials that are recyclable.
By recycling the components of mattresses and box springs that would otherwise become trash, UTEC was able to salvage approximately 195 tons of steel, 47 tons of foam, and 87 tons of wood for repurposing in 2017 alone. To put this into perspective, UTEC has recycled more than 20,000 mattresses, enough, if they were lined up, to approximate the length of the Boston Marathon route. In comparison, if the materials from inside these mattresses were removed, that length would equal a 5K.
S.2388 would create a commission to examine existing mattress management options, including recycling and disposal infrastructure; and make recommendations on policies and programs to increase mattress reuse and recycling, and to mitigate associated financial and environmental costs. The bill includes an agenda of what topics the commission should review, suggests a list of those who should serve on the commission, and gives it reporting timelines.
“The time for this bill and a move toward statewide mattress recycling in Massachusetts is now,” said Sen. Kennedy.