Turning your old mattresses into valuable resources
It might sound like a strange thing. But a lot of thought has gone into the end-of-life care of your mattress, if you live in Metro Vancouver or the surrounding areas.
It's an example of the recycle, reuse, avoid waste rhetoric that has dominated headlines over the past decade or more put into action. And it doesn't hurt (for those championing it) that it's also been a good business idea.
Fabio Scaldaferri is owner and CEO of Mattress Recycling, a company he co-founded with three others in 2008.
His partners moved on, but he continues to run and expand the business, including furniture recycling.
Mattress Recycling is now based in Hope, with a 34,500-square-foot warehouse facility. It's a location that allows the company to service Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island, Northern B.C., the Interior and Alberta.
They're the biggest mattress recycler in Western Canada, says Scaldaferri. But it's not been without its challenges.
Something a lot of people may not know about the recycling industry is how “high risk” it is. Two of its previous facilities — in Vancouver and Mitchell Island, Richmond — burned to the ground in “total loss fires,” he says.
After the Mitchell Island fire, Scaldaferri says they took about a year off to reassess and redesign — resulting in his development of a semi-automated processing system for this type of recycling.
“It was traumatic. You learn a lot of lessons. As a result, we bought our land (in Hope) and built from scratch what we needed,” he says. How is a mattress recycled? Mattress Recycling turns the “soft stuff ” (like foam and mattress toppers) into carpet underpads used in the flooring industry, says Scaldaferri. Canadian and American flooring companies buy this soft stuff and turn it into rebond, which goes under your carpets, he says:
“I think we have 400,000 or 500,000 pounds ready to move right now; we just ship that out.”
They shred the metal found in mattresses and sell it as recycled steel (used for cars and as rebar). The “non-marketable” things, like polyester and some fabrics, are made into a coal replacement fuel in the cement industry — instead of natural gas — when making cement.
Around 10 per cent of the mattresses they recycle go into landfill, says Scaldaferri.
A PUSH FOR CHANGE
Scaldaferri and his original co-founders definitely influenced change in the region. When they started, Scaldaferri says they attended Metro Vancouver council meetings and made a case for banning “mattresses, box springs and futons from landfills and incineration.”
Mattresses take up a lot of room in landfills and are full of materials that can be recycled, so this push for them to be recycled was supported, he explains.
As of 2011, mattresses and boxsprings have been banned from landfills in Vancouver, with a recycling program introduced — you can drop off your mattress for around $20 at a transfer station, and some municipalities do curbside pickups, says Scaldaferri.
“We don't really work with residential drop-offs anymore. If you take it to a transfer station, like Vancouver South Transfer Station, instead of putting it into the pile, they will put it into a 53-foot dry van trailer that holds about 180 mattresses and ship it to us.”
IT'S ALL HAPPENING IN HOPE
Their facility in Hope has been like a “breath of fresh air,” says Scaldaferri. Because of the automation in their recycling process, they were able to become a living wage employer, he says.
“We're used to having staffing turnover issues; it's not like that out there. It's such a stable workforce and highly skilled people,” he says.