Staying Green Through Your Move - What To Do With Your Old Mattress

Used mattresses are the bane of a landfill's existence. They take up a lot of space, give off noxious gases as they decompose, and their springs can damage the machinery used to flatten them.So what if, for a small fee, you could have your old mattress picked up by an environmentally friendly charity, which would then tear it apart and find new uses for about 90 percent of the materials?

The recycling process involves stripping the mattress down to its individual components — the quilted topper, the polyurethane foam, the steel springs, the wooden frame and a rough-hewn interior pad that feels as if it is made of horsehair. Those components, in turn, can be baled and sold for use in everything from carpet pads to garden mulch to car engines.