Since late 2020 Lismore City Council has been trialling a program to recycle mattresses and keep them out of landfill.
The program aims to minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill, reduce methane gases being produced from decomposing mattresses and recycle end-of-life waste products by turning them into a resource.
Council annually receives more than 4000 mattresses annually at the Lismore Recycling and Recovery Centre.
Historically mattresses were sent to landfill, however, under the new program mattresses are sent to a dedicated resource recovery facility where the mattresses are processed into separate commodities for which there are end markets.
During the initial trail period we have collected and transported 1940 mattresses or 70 tonnes of mattresses, helping to save 1552 cubic metres of landfill.
100% of the mattress materials are reused and recycled with the stripped metals reused as railway wheels, foam repurposed into carpet underlay, material utilised in decorative wall panels and the remaining products, including floc, wood and plastic, processed as biofuel.
The cost to deposit mattresses at the Lismore Recycling and Recovery Centre from 1 July 2021 is $25 per mattress which reflects the cost of having them recycled.
