Is there a place in St Louis Mo that recycles mattresses?

While some stores say they have gone green, STL Beds does more than talk the talk. As a member of the Sustainable Furnishing Council and a voluntary member of Ameren UE Pure Power program, STL Beds has made a company wide commitment to ourselves, our customers, and most importantly to the environment to become a modern green company within the St Louis community.  Recycle, reuse, and energy savings has been our company commitment since February 2008 when we took our first public steps to educate the community via our blog where we shared various ways to recycle mattress and box springs.  Though these are great solutions for the time as to what a person can do with their old mattress set, today I am happy to announce that STL Beds has partnered up with a local company that is as committed to sustainability as we are and has agreed to recycle mattresses for our local customers.

Company that recycles mattresses in St Louis

• Location STL Beds
• Cost $25.00 (NOTE We are currently unable to provide this service till further notice)
• Want us to Pick Up your old mattress?  Fee is based on zip code, call for a free quote.
• Mention this STL Beds article and used the “Promo Code STL Beds Recycles” with your purchase of a mattress set and we will recycle your old set for free.

What happens to the old mattress and box spring in the recycling process?

The typical mattress and box spring is made up of steel, polyurethane (p.u.) foam, cotton, fabric, and of course wood in the base. Solid recycling programs exist for the steel, and a market for the p.u. foam exists as well. Last but not least the fabric and wood that comes out of old mattresses and box springs are also recyclable. Our recycler is committed to seeing that these components are properly recovered and are reintroduced to the market place in a safe responsible manner.

Many waste disposal companies claim that the value of the recycled materials cannot be recovered from mattress recycling alone. We think the recyclable components of a bed make sense financially to be reclaimed as a responsible alternative to dumping them in our landfills which are running out of space. The fact is mattresses can take up to 25 cubic feet of space and can take hundreds of years to properly decompose.

As we have mentioned in previous articles there are a few operations that recycle mattress sets across the USA and even worse may not spread nation wide without appropriate funding. Since it typically costs $25.00 to dispose of a mattress set through most waste disposal companies, it is our hope that you will help us offset our costs to carry out this green effort buying paying a small fee to do so. We ask that you please consider our environment, long term sustainability, and support STL Beds in our personal effort to help change the way mattresses are disposed of in St. Louis. With your support we can make a difference right here in Saint Louis Missouri.

STL Beds is very hopeful after receiving the following email in response to our

Mattress Recycling – One St. Louis Area Company on a Mission blog.

I will be contacting Conigliaro Industries very soon to see if this is a feasible and logistical option for STL Beds. We’ll keep you informed.

I recently saw the article on your website about your companies interest in a mattress recycling program.

The Rest Assured National Mattress Recycling Program provides a simple, professional service to recycle your mattresses. Conigliaro Industries provides a cost effective and environmentally ecological solution to recycle over 95% of difficult to dispose of material including mattresses, upholstered furniture, and ceiling tiles.  We are a Certified National Recycler that provides access to LEED credits to your company and to create the most affordable recycling solutions that will protect the environment from difficult to dispose of material. Our professional recycling service will remove and recycle over 95% of the material; creating a cost effective and environmentally responsible recycling option for all of your hotel renovations and recycling needs of “hard to dispose of” material.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with your recycling needs and we can build you a cost effective and ecological quote to serve your recycling needs with our national program designed to save the consumer on logistical and shipping costs.

We were recently featured in Planet Green as one of the top companies to recycle mattresses. http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/recycle-matress.html

I look forward to assisting you with all your future recycling needs.

Thank You for your time,

Michael Mitrowski

National Mattress Recycling Manager

Conigliaro Industries

701 Waverly Street

Framingham, MA 01702

We hope that no matter what happens with STL Beds and the information included in this email that other mattress retailers and furniture stores can benefit from this information.

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.

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

If you currently already own a hard side waterbed you should have everything you need to change your water bed back into a regular bed. For example in a matter of 2 hours you can easily convert you old bed back into a conventional coil spring mattress or even one of the popular specialty mattresses like latex, memory foam, airbed or softside waterbed.

How to: Waterbed headboard into a freestanding headboard

Begin by breaking down your hard side wood framed waterbed saving all the screws, hardware, and frame boards. You will be able to utilize the old side frames to build headboard stands or headboard legs. In order to have your headboard sitting at the optimal height behind your new mattress you will to first determine the precise height to cut the stands too. You can do this by measuring the combined height of your mattress, box spring, and pedestal or frame that will be positioned in front of the newly freestanding headboard. Example: if combined height of the bed frame/drawer pedestal, mattress set, and base are 27”, cut your stands about 26”. The angle brackets used to hold your old bed together will be used to build your headboard stands.

Can I still used my waterbed drawers underneathe my mattress?

For those who have a drawer pedestal and want to continue to utilize the storage of them, know that you can set you mattress or mattress set on top of the drawers. First you will need to cut to size and screw down your old plywood decking on top of the pedestal which will now become a platform bed. Make it look more professional by cutting to size and putting a piece of trim around it for a more finished edge. If you have a taller drawer pedestal such as 18 ½” you may want to use your mattress only without a box spring or you will end up with a very tall bed with a total finished height of 38” to 42” tall. We often joke with customers who want to do this that they will need a ladder to get into bed.

How to use metal bed frame with water bed head board.

If you have no drawers or plan on not using your existing drawer pedestal you can use a regular steel bed frame and just set it in front of your headboard on stands. We don’t recommend using the old box pedestal or riser because they are unstable without the weight of a waterbed to secure them into position. With a little determination, a saw, and an electric drill, you now have changed your waterbed back into a conventional bed.