Mattress Graveyards - Should We Really Be Burying Our Mattresses?
By Phil Pendleton
We all buy mattresses for our homes and often get five, ten, fifteen maybe twenty years worth of use out of these mattresses. We go out and purchase a new mattress and of course must find a way to dispose of our old mattress. Many dispose of their mattresses via trash or disposal service. But this leads to filling our landfills with old mattresses creating a sort of mattress graveyard where more trash and debris cover them up to lay beneath tons and tons of trash in a landfill. Many of the materials inside these mattresses is not biodegradable.
This is the month of October which brings us Halloween, ghosts, ghouls and scares. Perhaps, when we bury our old mattresses we should be concerned that they are going to rise from the ground and walk the earth like mattress zombies scouring the Earth for restless sleepers like us . Perhaps your old mattress is looking for you like the zombie out of a Halloween thriller. Maybe there is a better way though of disposing our old mattresses that's more green friendly rather than burying them. That way they won't be possessed with the idea of coming to find us.
Many civic leaders and environmentalist have come to the same conclusion that disposing of large bulky items that can't decompose into a landfill just isn't the solution. So what are some of the options we have for discarding our old mattresses? If your mattress is perhaps five years old or less and is still in new or close to new condition then it should be recommended to ask family or friends if they can use your mattress. Explain how much you paid for it and tell them you'd rather see someone you know be able to use it rather than discarding it. You'd be surprised how many people may have a mattress on its last leg and may jump at an opportunity to replace it with a more modern mattress.
Perhaps your family and friends are happy with their mattresses (which is good) and just can't find a use for yours. If this is the case why not considering donating your mattress to one of the many charitable organizations or non-profit organizations out there. Companies like Goodwill or Salvation Army are often happy to accept lightly used mattresses that they can use in their own programs or offer them for sale through their stores to raise money for the different programs they offer for your community. It's not scary at all to drop off your old mattress to the different drop off locations. Who knows, perhaps your mattress will find a new home and live again.
There are also manufacturers who take old mattresses and use the old steel spring components and anything else that can be recycled to make new reconditioned mattresses. With the price of steel and foams climbing many of these businesses are able to recycle old mattresses and re-introduce new components into them to make a new mattress. These mattresses feature yellow law labels sewn into them and are companies like these accept and often will pick up old mattresses for these components. Typically only found in larger metropolitan areas these manufacturers or local shops help to find new life for your old mattress which will keep it out of a landfill. Recycled and reconditioned mattresses won't have bugs or other crawling creatures come out of them like some scary Halloween thriller. They are specially sanitized and cleaned before being returned to the general public for sale again but have new life breathed into them.
Many city waste processing centers are starting to recycle old mattresses by taking the steel out of them and scrapping it and melting it down as well. Not all do this but many are again due to the high cost of steel. You can contact your local city waste pickup center and ask them if they recycle. Metal scrap yards might also be a great place for recycling your mattress rather than introducing it into a landfill.
In this article I brought out the fact that landfills have long been mattress graveyards by mattresses being placed into landfills and buried by tons of trash and waste. There are alternatives to this and include donating your mattress to companies like Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Having them picked up by local manufacturers who recycle them into new reconditioned mattresses. There is always the choice too of having them picked up by your local waste or recycling center which can use the steel and other materials out of the mattress which will reduce what goes into landfills.
Hopefully if you're considering disposing of a mattress you can find a better home for it than having it get buried into a graveyard of old mattresses, trash and other waste. If you decide to try to recycle your old mattress than you're definitely doing you're part to help be more green and eco-friendly towards our environment. If you decide to just send your old mattress off to a landfill however, beware. Old mattresses in the mattress graveyard have been known to come out at night, looking for restless sleepers with whom to find. As you're telling ghost stories around that Halloween campfire, watch out behind you. That old mattress may be lurking like an undead zombie in the shadows. Stay alert and make sure you all stay together. Much like our planet's ecology if we all do our part we'll hopefully make it through to the sequel.
Phil Pendleton invites you to visit http://www.platformbeds.com.com for more information about platform beds, mattresses and bedding. Extra long beds are also featured as a popular trend in larger bed sizes. Platform Beds is an internet retailer established in 1999 that offers shipping of beds and furniture products throughout the continental United States.
© Copyright Phil Pendleton. All rights reserved worldwide.
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