At least 20 million mattress and box springs are thrown out every year in the United States or about 50,000 per day. Meanwhile, about 85% of the contents of a mattress and its box springs can be recycled. In this podcast, I’ll share info about how some states are testing innovating recycling programs.

You can listen to my podcast episode on mattress and box spring recycling in this YouTube video. It originally aired in March 2017.

In 2004, I took apart a mattress and box spring to see what was involved, and that blog has been the most popular blog I ever wrote on Trashmagination. So clearly, people want better solutions than landfills full of mattresses and box springs.

Resources Mentioned in the Podcast

• Bye Bye Mattress – recycling programs currently in California, Connecticut and Rhode Island
• Mattress Recycling Council
• Conscious Style Home by Danny Seo
• Trashmagination’s Pinterest board of mattress and box spring creative reuse ideas

Craft Projects from Bed Springs

• Wind chime, a vase and a photo display
• Christmas tree craft
• Wine rack
• Light fixtures where you put glass jars with a candle in the coil
• Tree topper
• Raised bed garden
• Laundry organizing rack

Show Details

• Script for this podcast episode about creative reuse of mattresses and box springs (not a transcript but gives the main ideas)
• The Trashmagination podcast theme music is Kitchen from the Marian Circle Drum Brigade.