Mattress Disposal/recycling

Dustykitten

Can anyone give me any ideas as to how a mattress can be recycled. We need to buy a new one for our 4 year old who is moving into his oldest brothers bed. The existing mattress is 10 years old and really grubby. The bed shop say they can take it away free of charge and I will ask what happens to it but guess it joins a huge pile of other ones in a skip.:eek:

justin138

An old chap I once knew many years ago would have shredded it (by hand) to put on his compost for the allotment. Of course, they were made of horsehair and such like in't olden days.

Wig

I had 2 old single beds & mattresses

The beds I stripped myself removed all the springs and threw them in the metal skip along with all the metal brackets from the bed frame, the wooden frame was of such reasonable quality strong wood that I dismantled it into planks and stored it, I have used half of the wood subsequntly on my new bed (which has slats to support the mattress) as replacement/improved slats.

The mattresses, hmmmmm, I can't quite remember, but I think they were taken away by the council complete. There's no reason they could not have been cut open the springs removed, the covers removed and thrown out, all the padding inside may be compostible, but it would also compost in landfill. The only thing you could contribute regards a matress IMO is removing and recyling the springs before disposal.