How to dispose of a mattress
If you are looking to get rid of your old mattress to make room for a new one, you should consider the environmental impacts and follow a few of our suggestions before just adding it to landfill.
When should you replace a mattress?
A mattress will have a different lifespan depending on varying factors. How many people sleep on it, as well as the length of time it's slept on each night. All these things add up to a mattress's lifespan.
The best way to tell if you need a new one is to ask yourself a few questions:
- Does your mattress feel lumpy and imbalanced?If so your mattress may have lost its firmness in areas and could lead to back problems
- Have you been waking up in the middle of the night or in the morning with back pains? Like the above, this may be due to the lack of structural integrity of the mattress.
- Have you slept on a different bed recently? If you have and found you got a much better nights sleep, it may be time to change up your mattress.
- Do you feel like a firmer bed would work better for you? Sometimes you may be getting a bad night's sleep because your body is not comfortable on a soft mattress.
Don't forget you can also test mattress's out in store for a better understanding of what mattress fits you best.
Recycling a mattress
There are many companies in various countries that are based around the recycling of mattresses. for example, there is:
This company is based in the UK and will dispose of your mattress responsibly. They will take things such as the mattress foam and ground it up for carpet padding. They will take the springs out and recycle the steel as steel is forever reusable.
Recycling is one of the best ways to help the environment, so if you can, do it.
Donating a mattress
If your mattress is still in a good condition and you are just looking to get a new one you can look into donating it. Asking family and friends is always the best place to start however there are countless charities that will take these mattresses to pass them onto homeless shelters or to people that need them.
You can also look into selling or giving away the mattress on websites and platforms such as gumtree and Facebook marketplace. This way you will be able to not only get rid of your mattress in a more eco-friendly way but also giving it to someone that may need it.
