"Goal: 10,000 beds to be recycled in 2011"

By NANCY BEAN FOSTER

New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent

WILTON, NH – Every year, as old beds are traded in for new ones, millions of mattresses and box springs end up in landfills. As the trend toward recycling mattresses catches on, one local business is making recycling part of their sales pitch to clients in the hospitality industry.
Nearly 40 million new mattresses and box springs are sold each year in America, said Ryan Trainer, president of the International Sleep Products Association, which represents mattress makers worldwide. But for each new bed sold, an old one ends up in a landfill, or in some cases, in the woods, at trash transfer stations or on the side of the road.
Though there is a push on to recycle the old beds, the industry is catching on slowly because the work involved in recycling is so intense, said Trainer.
"Mattresses are difficult to dismantle because they've been built to be so durable," he said. "Taking them apart is a manual operation."
For more than 20 years, Jennifer Bernard has been involved in the hospitality industry and has watched as her clients at hotels, hospitals and universities have sent thousands of mattresses and box springs to the dump. After learning that the mattresses don't easily decompose, Bernard became concerned about what the discarded beds were doing to the environment.
"We're making hills and mountains of mattresses and box springs," said Bernard. "They need to be recycled so they don't end up in landfills or in the woods."
Bernard and her partner and sister, Susan Pollio, own RSJ Associates, a procurement firm in Wilton that specializes in supplying hotels, universities, hospitals, assisted living facilities and other institutions with everything from light bulbs to beds. Those institutions go through a lot of beds, Bernard said.
"Beds will only last a certain amount of time," she said. "They have to be rotated every seven to 10 years, or more often, in some cases."
Until recently, Bernard was having new mattresses trucked in, and hauling the old ones out to local landfills, but she has recently begun having the old mattresses and box springs loaded on flat bed trucks and brought to a yard where they can be manually dismantled and recycled.
Bernard said her company has figured out a way to recycle nearly 94 percent of the components of the mattresses and box springs, but she declined to say who the out-of-state recycling company is, or where it is located, because competition is heating up for the nascent niche.
"The mattresses are ripped apart by hand and everything is separated out," she said.
The metal from the springs is sold off as scrap metal which can be melted down and reused. The wood is used as matting for gardens. The foam padding can be chopped up, mixed with a binding agent, and used as carpet padding.
"We've found a way to recycle every component except the buttons and the staples," Bernard said. "And we're working on those."
Bernard said her company even recycles the plastic and cardboard the new beds are delivered in. And while her crews are in towns bringing in new beds and taking out the old, Bernard said she's reaching out to the general public in each community to give them an opportunity to recycle their beds inexpensively.
"People don't want to throw their mattresses in the woods," said Bernard, "so they need to have an option."
Recycling the mattresses and box springs is less expensive for her clients than trucking them to landfills, and though her company isn't making any money off the recycling project, she's set a goal for her company of recycling 10,000 beds in 2011.
"It saves the client money plus it feels good to be doing something for the country," said Bernard.