Aiming to increase mattress recycling

The WA state government is aiming to boost recycling of the 150,000 mattresses thrown away in the Perth and Peel regions every year.

Environment Minister Albert Jacob said the discarded mattresses would fill 44 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

“With an average mattress length of two metres, if all the mattresses we throw away were lined up each year they would stretch 300 km, or from Perth to Manjimup,” Jacob said.

The minister said about 85% of the mattresses ended up in landfill.

“A report commissioned by the Waste Authority of WA estimated the space that mattresses take up in landfill could also generate more than $10 million in gate fee revenue each year if that space was used for general waste,” he said.

“Mattresses have an enormous amount of material that can be recovered and recycled such as metal, timber and foam.

“In 2009, the state government, through the Waste Authority’s Strategic Waste Initiatives Scheme, provided $116,000 to the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council for a mattress recycling project. This project is showing that recycling mattresses is an effective way of reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.

“The government now wants to expand this initiative and is calling for expressions of interest from organisations - including local government - for a pilot project to increase recycling of mattresses from the residential sector.”

Information and application forms are available from the Waste Authority’s website. Applications close at 5 pm on 21 June 2013.