Future Friendly the new buzz word for Eco Friendly Mattresses?

Just recently took notice of the new Future Friendly Challenge that was advertised on a TV commercial and it intrigued me. Proctor & Gamble said that we could get more out of every bottle of their product, which would mean putting less into our landfills. They asked each of us to try their Future Friendly brands to help clean up more than our homes which got me to thinking about the more obscure ways that each of us can make a positive impact on the environment.
 

Mattress recycling although available in some areas is still virtually not accessible to most people even if they wanted to recycle their old mattress. Donating it isn’t an option if the mattress is stained and unsanitary or is no longer usable from years of wear. So how can each of us be future friendly and have a positive impact on the environment if we must throw away our old mattress? Simple, some mattress manufactures like Land and Sky are now offering mattresses that are built to have less impact on the landfills by building them from sustainable and biodegradable materials that will break down when they ultimately must be disposed of.

Landfills space more plentiful because of future friendly mattress

Future Friendly Beds are important to our future and are now making a difference 

These new mattresses are essentially giant king, queen, full, and twin size suitcases that zip open and closed. Inside various layers can be inserts to achieve optimal support. These mattresses can be built with replaceable layers that can be disposed of when worn as opposed to throwing away an entire mattress. Mattresses can use up as much a 25 cubic feet of landfill space. By simply replacing a layer or a cover instead of the whole mattress fewer raw materials are needed and wasted while precious landfill spaced is preserved.
 
Another thing that can be done is that the various comfort and support layers to build this type of mattress can be built from sustainable all natural latex rubber, cotton, and wool making the mattresses nearly 100 percent eco-friendly and biodegradable. Mattresses made from such materials also tend to last up to three times as long as a conventional mattress and box spring.
 
 
So if you are thinking Future Friendly Mattresses from companies like Land and Sky can significantly reduce waste, challenge yourself to purchase your next mattress and make sure that meets the above criteria. Keeping mattresses out of landfills is easy when they are built with replaceable parts and can last up to 25 – 30 years making it the next best option to mattress recycling.
 
    
Waste prevention is important to me so I’m taking the Future Friendly Challenge. Will you join me? http://www.future-friendly.com/ReduceWaste.aspx

Most people have no idea what happens to their old mattress

when their dealer hauls it away or exchanges it under a comfort guarantee. It’s sad but some people could care less what happens to it as long as they don’t have to contend with it. Fortunately for everyone more people are beginning to ask what happens to that old mattress when it leaves my house. 
   
The fact is in most cases stores simply dispose of mattresses where they end up in land fills much to the dismay of the trash haulers. Old mattresses are unsanitary, hard to handle, and do not easily compress or compost. Once in the land fill such things as non biodegradable materials, synthetic fibers, and the large amounts of chemicals used to build them and make them fire retardant could affect our earth leaching out into the ground water.
You might ask “Why not recycle them?” Here several problems come up.

• First is cost, recycling mattresses is very labor intensive. Much of the work has to be done by hand and where there is equipment to do it, the problem is that it gets very expensive.
• Second is the cost of transportation to get the mattress to the point of recycling. At this time there are only about 12 recyclers in the U.S and Canada.
  We have been asked if we can resell them and the answer is no! Even if retailers could sell them legally they run the risk of spreading disease, exposing consumers to unsanitary environment, and yes even bed bugs cross contaminating new mattresses. Many people have suggested the issue of cleaning and sanitizing old mattresses so they could be used again through reuse making them a more sustainable product. The extra expensive of time from labor, increased costs of sanitizing, and costs involved to get proper certifications would cause old mattresses to sell for the same prices as some new mattresses.

We’re not saying it’s the best or healthiest decision for mattress seekers, but a large portion of them do find new homes through flea markets, second hand shops, and Craig’s list. I don’t condone this because people have to do what they have to do to afford a mattress and it often beats sleeping on the floor.

Other ways old mattresses are gotten rid of

Many second hand stores and retailers of so called “new” mattresses have been exposed for improperly recovering old mattresses illegally or not properly sanitizing them to meet laws to protect used mattress buyers.  When these mattresses don’t get stripped down and recovered with new materials or at the very least sanitized you just don’t want to know what’s on the inside. Shockingly these mattresses are then rebagged and are sold as new which should be illegal under the new federal fire code #1633. Sometimes required law labels are faked or not even present on the mattress notifying the consumer of contents and proper fire safety certification.

So what will happen in the future to old mattresses?   

I suspect that in the very near future, recycling will become much more available to each of us. Everyone will likely see implemented some type of disposal fee which could be handled much like the deposit fee required on glass soda bottles in some states. At the very least if dealers have to pay for disposal of an old mattress it’s like every other expense it will be passed on to the consumer as a cost of doing business.

They told me I was buying a Latex mattress!

It only makes since that when you go into a store and ask for an all natural latex mattress that’s what will be sold to you, but regrettably that’s not always the case. It seems not all retailers are up front about the products they sell. Recently advertised I saw a latex mattress that was 12 inches thick and was claimed to regularly sell for $1000.00 but it was on sale for a mere $399.00 interested in what I would get for such a measly investment. The salesman seemed to know nothing about the bed and after looking at the description attached to the  mattress I found it was built with only 1 inch of latex and 11 inches of additional cheap filler materials.

Good quality latex mattresses cost $1500.00 and up which some people might consider a bit pricey and at first glance that may seem like the case, however when you consider they are very eco friendly in make up, that they can potentially last up to 25 maybe even 30 years, its not hard to see why they are usually considered the best built mattresses in the industry today offering a true value and money well spent.

So what’s the problem when stores claim to be selling latex mattresses cheap?

Claims of sustainable, durable, and organic are widely marketed and are impressive buzz worthy terms that can be misleading. Just because the bed has a layer of latex or two doesn’t make it stronger or even eco friendly for that matter. The fact is if it mostly contains low quality non replenishable petrol based polyurethane foams that develop body impressions, wear out quickly, and contain potentially harmful chemicals.

Advertising 12 inch thick latex mattresses that include a measly 1 to 2 inches are impressive to look at but are nothing more than marketing gimmicks.
We sacrifice durability by replacing what would normally be 6 or 7 inches high strength tempered steel coils with cheap low grade filler materials like polyurethane foam, fiber fill, and yes even a couple inches of latex. So much for the good deals we call these latex mattresses, latex hybrids because they are a mixture of cheaper material rather than durable latex rubber.

Shopping all natural latex do you know what you’re buying?

I wish I could say, “Case closed” and there is nothing else to this issue of latex mattress shopping but there is more. If a person is assuming that just because they are buying latex that it is all natural or even organic they best do a little more research when it comes to the purity of the latex. Whether you are purchasing one of 2 types of latex Dunlop or Talalay latex, make sure to get the best you can afford. Fillers and extenders are often used to reduce costs and as a result can compromise durability and life. There are also synthetic blends claimed to be as good but usually are not. Ask about the mixture which is commonly believed to significantly comprise the mattress’s life.
 
They can be 30% natural rubber and 70% synthetic rubber which have more chemicals and fillers that will not last as long. Our recommendation is layers of latex from top to bottom of the mattress, nothing else. Latex with no fillers, extenders. A latex mattress with no foam layers and fiber layers for cushioning, just a great combination of your favorite firm, medium, or soft latex foam rubber layers. This is what a real latex mattress is and it will give you the longest mattress life, most comfortable sleep, and earth friendly mattress you can buy.

Environmental mattress issues?

Personally, I am not entirely convinced global warming is man made, however I do believe that it’s important to make a sincere effort to preserve the Earth and it’s atmosphere. For as many years as I can count the mattress industry which supports my lively hood has not respected or supported the planet I live on that sustains my life.

I find it interesting how everyone points fingers including myself, when we are all to blame. Some believe being Eco friendly makes a difference while others do not. In the retail mattress industry I have had this question asked of me many times and people often giggle at the mention of an Eco friendly or organic mattress.

If history teaches anything is that we can learn a lot from past civilizations that knew the repercussions of being wasteful and for that very reason made use anything and everything. Those lessons are just as important today and somehow we have forgotten that in our throwaway society. I’m not talking about “go green” t-shirts you can by at a department stores, but rather real changes that can affect our personal health and our environments health.

Doug’s 5 reasons an environmentally responsible mattress is important

1. When my father started his water bed business I can remember coming home and my mom telling us that we smelled like a swimming pool store. Today I cringe at the thought of my exposure to the chemicals that was endured throughout those years of selling vinyl waterbed mattresses. I am pretty convinced that those chemicals from off gassing sometimes called VOC’s had not only permeated my clothing but my body.
2. As of July 2007 most people haven’t a clue that the way mattresses are being built was changed so radically. Today we all need to be very cautious to possible exposure to harmful PBDE’s in order. A mandated law that was designed to save the few people that were injuring or killing them selves by smoking in bed yet know we all live with a possible bigger risk.
3. The average mattress is 12 inches thick or more, half of which is foam that is chemically high in content and petroleum based. Foam the primary ingredient to build a makes us the average mattress buyer a part of the problem yet again by stripping the oil of earth of another luxury. Yet many of us haven’t a clue of how foam it is built or where it comes from.
4. The industry doesn’t want a mattress to last forever and builds mattresses for the consumer that don’t last but a few years for profits which could be made in other ways. The average consumer throws a mattress away with no real understanding of the environmental impact. They are typically unaware that 1 mattress set takes up to 25 cubic feet of landfill space and that in fact can take hundreds of years to break down.
5. Most of us are unaware that mattresses don’t compost well while even more is not aware that nation wide only a handful of mattress recycling programs exists.  This is because it is a very labor-intensive process to tear apart a mattress just like it is to build one.

Today Mattresses can be built with:

• Replaceable parts
• Biodegradable and sustainable materials
• Recycled materials
• Without or with minimal chemicals
• Eco friendly but human friendly too

Are Eco friendly mattresses important?

It may not seem essential to the average person and some people will go so far as to say why make changes in the way mattresses are made, it will only make them more expensive and won’t make a difference.

The idea that it is to late to change or make a new start is not a ridiculous one. For example people stop smoking, eat healthier; they even start exercising all in the name of a better healthier lifestyle because they know it is better than the alternative.

I’ll just say this, while everyone is fighting over green house gases, global warming or cooling what ever the heck it is this decade, there are real controllable health and environmental issues each of us can control in our little corner of this world. This decision affects every one of us, 1/3 of our life, and is every bit as important if not more than diet and exercise. What is it? The mattress you choose to sleep on.

I always respect people’s opinions and even opposition to green mattresses as long as they have based their decision on educational facts not just some predetermined biased against anything and everything green.

A sustainable mattress industry can make a difference.

· Mattresses can be made from all natural latex rubber.
· It’s sustainable, biodegradable, very durable, and most importantly comfortable.

· Latex rubber can be virtually chemical free.

· As it stands polyurethane foams are the prominent building component of mattresses. It is not durable, petroleum based, and loaded with potentially harmful chemicals.

· Mattress covers and padding can be made using cotton / organic cotton very sustainable and virtually chemical free.

· The fact is today most mattresses are filled with polyester fibers and covers are synthetic blends.

· Beds can be made with zippers so that parts and pieces can be replaced when worn. This will free up space from entire mattresses that are disposed of because of a bad cover or a bad layer of padding. Building a mattress in such a way also allows for customization or the mattresses’ feel.

· Today’s mattresses are not customizable and worse yet are basically considered throw aways and can take up nearly 25 cubic feet of landfill space. They don’t compost well because they are not made from biodegradable materials.

· Today’s beds can be made with natural fire retardants like wool / organic wool

· Mattresses built after July 1, 2007 must meet new federal fire standards for safety. The ironic thing is that they loaded the mattresses with potentially harmful chemicals and some are know to even include carcinogens. To get one without requires a doctor’s prescription stating chemical sensitivity issues.

· Foundations can be built using untreated lumber and fast growing hardwoods.

Most people are going through life without a clue as to what is happening to many of the things we buy everyday. This one in my opinion is worth educating yourself on. You can make a difference in your personal health and the health of the planet we all share. So my answer to the original question, yes through informational blogs like this one Mattress Manufacturers Going Green will work and as people learn the facts and the truths, they will also learn the alternatives ways to buy beds and that a healthy green Eco friendly mattress and mattress industry can one day be the norm.