A Simple Way to Sleep Better at Night

By Elizabeth Macdonald on February 24, 2022 in Other

Creating jobs while you sleep. Photo: Matthew Tress

There is nothing better than a comfy new mattress, but do you ever spare a thought for what happens to your old one after it’s left your home?
Every year, a massive 1.25 million mattresses end up in landfill in Australia. Each mattress takes up 0.75 cubic metres of space and contributes to the growing cost of residential waste disposal. What’s more, the average spring-based mattress contains 12.5kg of steel, 2kg of wood and 1.5kg of foam, all of which can be recycled or reused.
Recycling these bulky items helps to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels while supporting stable local jobs – many more jobs than if we just send all of our old stuff straight to the rubbish tip.
So, how do we make sure our mattresses get a second life?

Support Retailers That Support a Circular Economy
The Circular Economy is an alternative economic model to the prevailing take, make and discard model of consumption where waste is minimised through smart design, using resources efficiently so that we end up with less waste and emissions, causing less harm to our environment and creating more jobs.
Product stewardship is a fancy way of saying that retailers or manufacturers are taking responsibility for what happens to their products at their end of life, which can be the driver for design innovation using a circular approach.
Members of Recycle My Mattress, an organisation that works with manufacturers, retailers and social impact recyclers to put your old mattress responsibly to bed, are ahead of the game as they contribute financially to research and development to improve recycling. When you buy a new mattress from one of these retailers, you can arrange a free collection of your old mattress at the same time and it will be recycled.

Book a Clean-up Collection With Council
Another way to recycle your old or unwanted mattress is through Waverley Council’s clean-up collection service. Take advantage of Council’s two clean-up collections each year or, if you’ve already used your two clean ups, check out your waste calendar online to find out when your next zone clean-up date is and wait until then.
These free services keep our streets clean, so there is no excuse for leaving a mattress out without booking in. Your mattress will be picked up by Council’s waste operations team and recycled by JLW Services through Veolia, Council’s waste processor. Waverley Council collects more than 4,000 mattresses every year to be recycled – will yours be one of them?
So, go ahead and sleep better at night knowing your old mattress won’t go to landfill.