New Company Works to Keep Mattresses Out of Landfill
Each year 300,000 mattresses are sent to Cleveland area landfills. Since 94 percent of all mattresses and box springs are recyclable, something has to be done to encourage the recycling of these products. Fortunately, Chuck Brickman, a native Northeast Ohioan, is taking on this feat and has started a business, Ohio Mattress Recovery and Recycling, to develop a plan to recycle mattresses in Ohio.
There are currently buyers for all of the byproducts that come from mattresses. The steel is melted and recycled, the wood will be sold to energy companies for biomass fuel, firewood to heat homes and businesses, mulch products for organic gardens, and the cotton product has a variety of uses including diesel oil filters, absorbency material for liquid municipal waste, animal bedding, firewood and shipping crates. Ohio Mattress Recovery and Recycling is working with local businesses, mattress companies, waste management districts, and landfill owners and operators who wish to see an end to mattresses getting dumped in landfills.
Brickman is talking with waste management districts throughout the state to help establish tipping fees on mattresses or ban them from the landfills. Recycling mattresses saves energy and valuable landfill space, reduces the use of natural resources and greenhouse gases, and creates jobs in a struggling Ohio economy. Mattresses take up 23 cubic feet of landfill space and reduce compaction rates by 400 percent. They also cause smolder fires and the springs from the mattresses are causing excessive maintenance to the machines.
Ohio Mattress Recovery and Recycling is interested in building relationships with local businesses and welcomes support from the Cleveland community. For more information, contact Chuck Brickman at 440-856-3685 or visit www.ohiomattressrecovery.com.