When Are Mattresses Not Mattresses?

When you go through your research and shopoperating the landfill when their steel spring wires get
endlessly for the right mattress to give you andtangled up in the landfill equipments' running gear.
yours years of restful nights - then your purchase isOver time, some mattresses actually surface and
indeed a mattress that is a mattress.have a cost to re-bury them. Because bulk items like
After about ten or fifteen years the ability of yourmattresses take up a lot of space in the landfill, the
perfect mattress to provide you and yours thelife of the landfill you paid for earlier is cut short and
comfortable peaceful rest that it once did fadesonce again you will be paying for a new landfill so
away. Eventually you start the new mattressthat trash does not pile up around your dwelling.
purchasing cycle over again as you seek to regain allYou've seen those images of New York when the
the benefits that a good night's rest brings into yourCity's Sanitation workers went on strike.
life.And, there are other hidden fees in the landfill and
When you purchase this new perfect mattress fortrash collection service overhead that no one other
you and yours, that first mattress you bought maythan a CPA could ever figure out for sure.
well become excess and that is when a mattress isThankfully, there are a handful of grass roots
no longer a mattress - at least not to you. The oldmattress recycling facilities that have sprung up to
mattress is now your disposal problem - what to doproperly dispose of unwanted mattresses in an
with it?environmentally correct manner which also creates
While prudent people may well find a second use forjobs. The government has as of yet not stepped in
the old mattress, such as letting someone in thelike they did with used tire legislation and created a
family upgrade their bedding if the old mattress islawful system of proper mattress disposal that gets
better than what they currently have, making a fewold mattresses off the roadsides and out of the
bucks or giving the mattress away on craigslist,landfills via recycling the cotton, felt, foam, steel and
donating it to a local charity, or as most folks end upother reusable components of the mattress.
doing, disposing of the old mattress in the local landfill.Several green mattress manufacturers have begun
We submit to you that disposing of your oldselling new mattresses that are more earth friendly
mattress in the local landfill costs you a lot more(Meaning less toxic components in mattresses.) and
money than you are aware of because of all thethere is hope that some day in the future mattress
hidden costs. What? Yes, hidden costs.manufacturers will be able to take back the old
As a taxpayer, your taxes went to buy the landfill ormattresses they sold years ago, recycle those old
as a customer of a private trash hauling companymattresses themselves, and after appropriate
that owns and/or operates the landfill - a chunk ofsanitation of the components, reuse the old mattress
your monthly fees goes towards paying for thatmaterial to manufacture new mattresses. The latter -
company's investment in the landfill property. Youall manufacturer method - approaches zero waste
also, one way or another, pay for the operation ofwhich benefits everyone in the loop as well as the
the landfill and mattresses increase the cost ofenvironment. Hold this thought, as it is the future.