Bed and mattress recycling

Recycling is pretty much on the news every day - whether it is regarding carbon emissions, or plastic bottles found at the bottom of the ocean. It’s something we can no longer afford to avoid, in more ways than one. I’m sure you have all seen mattresses dumped on the road side, or down a country lane; this is called 'fly-tipping' and it's a huge problem. Eventually the items disappear, and it is always the council which gets rid of them.  If you go on your local authority’s website, you’ll see that they all provide a bulky collection service. Some councils charge for this, others don’t – it depends where you live – but, if not free, it’s usually quite reasonably priced. They will probably take away washing machines, wardrobes and chest of drawers too!

I once lived in London, and the council removed everything for free. There were various reasons for this. In fact, you could put any old rubbish in any of your bins, and the local bin men would take it away. Where I live now, they check the bins. If something is obviously out of place, they leave it – meaning the rubbish stacks up and you have to beg for them to come back. In London, things are different. You can leave all of your old pots and pans, clothes and shoes outside your door or on the street and no one will care. The following morning, or even a few seconds later, they’ll be gone. Who knows where, but 'waste not' really is 'want not' in big city environments! This is not quite the same for mattresses and beds. People used to leave them either on the street outside their own front door, or comically, next to a bin! After a few days, they’d be gone. This was thanks to the council removing them... They would have to, or they’d stay there forever and no one would really bat an eyelid. Local people either didn’t know, or didn’t care, that a quick email to the council was all that was needed for the local authority to come and collect it!

In most other areas of the country, things do not work like this. You wouldn’t leave large pieces of furniture, or anything else outside your front door, especially in suburbia. So what should we do with them, and what are our options? My local council will charge me £12 per collection; they will do that up to 5 times a year, and the collection can include up to 5 bulky items. I think this is okay. Some important things to check though... What are the council doing with the mattress, after they’ve collected it? Does it matter? It probably doesn’t matter to many people, but it will matter to some.

At Best Beds Direct, we offer a very popular Collect & Recycle service on a large number of products.