Recycling mattresses and training the unemployed

Western Sydney councils are supporting Mission Australia’s Soft Landing Mattress Recycling initiative. The aim of the program is to salvage materials from used mattresses while also offering employment and training opportunities to people who have experienced barriers to gaining lasting employment.

The initiative is being supported by eight groups from the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC) - Auburn, Bankstown, Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury, Holroyd, Liverpool and Penrith. The organisation’s president, Councillor Tony Hadchiti, said, “WSROC is proud to support such a fantastic initiative.

“Mattresses are bulky, take years to decompose and often end up in landfill because they are difficult to recycle mechanically,” Cllr Hadchiti said. Yet by breaking down mattresses into their base materials, he continued, “Soft Landing is able to reclaim 95% of each mattress, re-using or onselling components such as rubber, foam, timber and fabric.”

Bill Dibley, leader of social enterprise at Mission Australia, said Mission Australia diverts around 110,000 mattresses from landfill every year - equivalent to around 923 semitrailer loads. Hadchiti added that in 2013, over 42,000 mattresses came from Western Sydney, saving the participating councils over $1 million in landfill costs.

Mission Australia Soft Landing Mattress Recycling plant at Smithfield.

The program’s Smithfield facility employs 26 staff who, according to Dibley, “were doing it tough and would otherwise have found it extremely difficult to get into the labour market”. He explained that the workers “break down all mattresses into their base materials for recycling, with steel springs sold as scrap metal, foam used for carpet underlay, and timber made into kindling and mulch. Those able to be refurbished have been made available to low-income households.”

Dibley added, “Most of the workers we employ at Smithfield are now undertaking traineeships in waste management, and many of our staff have gone on to other training and employment opportunities.” He thanked WSROC and other councils for their support.