B4
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2022
More ways in the works to recycle mattresses
By CHRIS LEHMAN
KLCC
The thing about a mat-
tress is that there’s no obvi-
ous way to recycle it.
“We tried shredding the
mattresses and that didn’t
work,” said Terry McDon-
ald, the director of the St.
Vincent de Paul Society of
Lane County in Eugene.
A couple of decades ago,
McDonald helped develop
the country’s fi rst large-
scale recycling program for
mattresses.
Being the fi rst meant
they made a lot of mistakes.
“We tried cutting off
the materials using an air
knife, and then we tried a
water knife, and then we
tried a grinder to take them
off ,” said McDonald. “That
started a lot of fi res.”
It turns out, recycling a
mattress takes elbow grease
and time. In a nondescript
warehouse in a Eugene
industrial district, St. Vin-
cent de Paul workers take
apart mattresses piece by
piece.
It takes some eff ort, but
McDonald says some work-
ers can take apart more than
50 mattresses a day. With
just a handful of work sta-
tions, this facility can pro-
cess more than 3,000 mat-
tresses a month. And he
said once they’re disman-
tled, up to 90% of each mat-
tress can be recycled.
“Some of them are more
diffi cult than others,” said
McDonald. “There are
some mattresses that have
something called a pocket
coil. It’s a nylon baggie
around each coil that’s very
diffi cult to recycle. But
most everything else can be
recycled on these things.”
Despite the mountains
of mattresses that line the
walls here, McDonald said
the vast majority of mat-
tresses in Oregon end up
in landfi lls. State lawmak-
ers approved a bill this year
that’s meant to change that.
Starting in 2024, a fee
Chris Lehman/KLCC
A worker takes apart a mattress at a St. Vincent de Paul recycling facility in Eugene.
DROPPING OFF A MATTRESS OR BOX
SPRING FOR RECYCLING WILL ALWAYS
BE FREE UNDER THE PROGRAM
will be added to the pur-
chase of a new mattress.
The amount is still to be
determined, but it ranges
from $10 to $16 dollars in
the other three states with a
similar fee. The money will
be used to establish a state-
wide mattress collection
and recycling program.
“In the law there’s a
minimum
convenience
standard that the mattress
stewardship program has
to ensure that collection is
convenient and that there’s
locations across the state
available in both the urban
and rural areas of the state,”
said Suna Bayrakal of the
Product Stewardship Insti-
tute, which testifi ed in favor
of the proposal.
The chief backer of the
mattress recycling bill in
Salem was state Sen. James
Manning, a Eugene Demo-
crat, who pushed for it over
several legislative sessions.
“Anything that is worth
having is worth pursuing,”
said Manning. “This is a
model that is long overdue,
and I think that it’s going
to reap more benefi ts, for
not just Oregon, but for the
planet itself.”
The new law requires
the mattress industry to
work out the details of how
the collection system will
work. But dropping off a
mattress or box spring for
recycling will always be
free under the program.
McDonald said that will
hopefully cut down on the
number of times people
illegally dump old mat-
tresses along the side of the
road.
“Unfortunately, I can’t
force people to do the right
thing,” he said. “Having
said that, since there’s a
way for them to dispose of
it, under this law, for free,
and a place that’s close by
them, there’s no point in
them hauling it off into the
middle of the woods.”
The idea of charging
consumers a recycling fee
on the purchase of a product
isn’t new. In 2010, Oregon
established a fi rst-in-the-
nation stewardship program
for paint. Since then, nine
other states and the District
of Columbia have set up
similar programs.
Oregon will be the fourth
state with a mattress recy-
cling fee. The others are
California, Connecticut and
Rhode Island.
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