There’s no doubt that organising for your old mattress to be recycled is the best way of getting rid of it. By recycling a mattress, it can be get a new lease of life, resulting in fewer mattresses end up in landfill.
There are a number of private collection services operating throughout England and Wales in most postcodes including Collect Your Old Bed, We Are Mattress Recycling and The Mattress Recycling People – these three companies all guarantee to send your old mattress to a recycling centre. The charges will depend on your area and the size of the product, but usually range from £30 to £50 for a standard-sized double mattress.
In addition, Bye Bye Bed (www.byebyebed.com) covers all of West Yorkshire; while Recycle My Mattress (www.recycle-my-mattress.co.uk) is operating in West & East Sussex.
LoveJunk, an online marketplace specialising in the removal of bulky waste such as mattresses, is another option. The platform helps you find your cheapest and most responsible disposal option, connecting you to reuse organisations and licensed waste collectors in your area. Prices will vary depending on ease of pickup and the condition of the mattress. Check out recent mattress removal prices here.
Another organisation which operates around Glasgow is King Size Recycling – with prices starting from £30, they will collect your mattress for recycling. The business will also cover the whole of North East Scotland via courier – get in touch for a quote.
We also advise checking with your local council as each operates differently. Some will offer separate bulky waste pick-up services or mattress collections or collections for recycling. In some cases, councils may have their own contract with a mattress recycler. However, in other areas, it might be that householders have to arrange to take unwanted mattresses to their local HWC.
When buying a new mattress, it’s worth looking for retailers who offer to take away your old one, although it’s also important to check what they do with them. Try to find out exactly how that recycling works – is some of it just being crushed up and going back into landfill? In other cases, some end-of-life mattresses or old components and fillings make their way back into production without proper processing. Look for retailers who are selling NBF Approved Member products to give you the peace of mind of knowing that the product you’re buying is clean, safe and honest.
We also advise that you are wary of van collectors offering to take away bulky items, such as old mattresses, for a charge. In fact, many simply fly tip what they pick up or even rent a warehouse and dump goods there before disappearing. We’ve even heard of others having old mattresses recovered so that they look like new and then selling them as ‘cancelled orders’ or ‘bankrupt stock bargains’ or by cold calling in residential areas and then selling them to unsuspecting householders.
Another way to help reduce the number of mattresses going to landfill is through making informed buying choices. Increasing numbers of new mattresses are now available which have been designed with end-of-life in mind and feature recyclable filling materials.