www.choice.com.au – BY LIAM KENNEDY

Recycling has been a routine for many Australian households for over 20 years, but not everyone is using the system as much as they could be.

In a 2020 study, Monash University found that while just over half of Victorian households had taken advantage of return to store recycling schemes, fewer had used council programs, drop-off events or post-back services to get difficult items recycled.

Mattresses are another item that can cause havoc in landfill, taking up almost a cubic metre of space on average and taking over 100 years to decompose.

Like whitegoods, they also contain useful components that don’t deserve to be put to bed prematurely.

Soft Landing is a not-for-profit that works to make sure this doesn’t happen. Operating across parts of NSW, Victoria, WA and the ACT, they take in mattresses via pickups and drop-offs and from some councils who collect them from residents.

They then deconstruct each mattress, selling on the components for use in carpet manufacturing and construction.

If Soft Landing doesn’t operate in your area, see if your council recycles mattresses or if any local reuse services in your area do, by checking Planet Ark’s mattress directory.

You can also check with the manufacturer or retailer you bought your mattress from to see if they will take it back for recycling, or if another local mattress shop can do this for you.

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