The Mattress Recycling Council’s Bye Bye Mattress Connecticut program collected more than 184,000 mattresses and diverted nearly 3,000 tons of material from the waste stream during its most recent reporting period. The program also met or exceeded performance goals related to municipal, retail, healthcare and educational facility participation according to the Mattress Recycling Council’s 2018-19 Connecticut Annual Report. The report was submitted to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection on October 15. A complete copy can be found here.
“We are proud of the positive impact that MRC’s Bye Bye Mattress program has made in Connecticut. As the state where the mattress industry first pioneered the program, we are pleased to see a steady track record of continual success and meaningful improvement,” said MRC’s Managing Director Mike O’Donnell.
Highlights of the report show that MRC and its Bye Bye Mattress program:
- Collected 184,190 mattresses and recycled 2,963 tons of material in the reporting period, which brings the program’s running total to more than 680,000 mattresses collected and 11,000 tons of material recycled since May 2015.
- Expanded the program to 139 collection locations throughout the state. This includes 136 municipalities that have access to no-cost collection sites or events at their local transfer station or public works yard and three additional sites that accept mattresses from any resident in the state.
- Increased participation from businesses and organizations with large amounts of discarded mattresses to recycle. MRC now works with 239 of these public and private entities including mattress retailers, hotels, universities and junk haulers.
- Promoted the use of the Stop Illegal Dumping public service announcement which garnered more than 500 airings from Connecticut media and offered cities and towns the ability to request co-branded video spots for use in their own communication channels (websites, social media, presentations, etc.).
Mattresses collected through the program are deconstructed. The steel, foam, fiber and wood become new products such as carpet padding, insulation or mulch. With the program’s collection network maturing, MRC plans to further research new end markets for recycled mattress materials.