Replacing your bed can be a welcome relief, but disposing of your old mattress in the city of Manchester and the Greater Manchester area brings logistical headaches and worrying statistics.
Greater Manchester’s not so great at recycling
Although Manchester’s a great city, Greater Manchester has been identified as one of the areas of the UK which just isn’t so great when it comes to responsible disposal and recycling. According to research reported by Resource Magazine, from 2014 – 2018 inclusive around 30,000 tonnes of household waste, which included almost 10,000 mattresses, was fly-tipped across the Greater Manchester area.
Counting the council cost
Although Manchester City Council are streets ahead of many other UK councils by offering its residents a free ‘bulky waste’ collection each year, replacing a mattress and disposing of an old one can often be an urgent need … who’s got the space to store an old mattress if you need to wait for your next free collection to come around?What also makes it difficult for Manchester residents is that council pricing varies across different Manchester boroughs – for example Trafford Council does not offer the free collection and have collection costs starting at £32, so it can be hard to quickly find affordable rates and convenient dates for getting a mattress properly disposed of.The fact that items need to be placed kerbside for council collection can also be a problem for older, disabled or one-adult families who cannot get a mattress safely out of the home themselves.
Taking responsibility – but don’t take a 2m van
Although there are several tips and recycling centres around the Manchester area, self-disposal of mattresses can still be problematic, as households not using the council’s bulky waste service are expected to transport waste items themselves, something which gives rise to other issues. Take an old superking bed and mattress, for example:
- Not many households have access to an appropriately sized vehicle, such as a transit sized van.
- Even if a van this size is available, many of the local recycling centres, for example at Stretford, Altrincham, Droylsden, Clifton, Middleton, Sandfold Lane and Eccles don’t allow transit vehicles over 2m to access the site for drop off.
- Not all households have access to the lifting and carrying strength needed for getting a bed this size out of the house, onto the kerbside, into the vehicle to the vicinity of the recycling centre and then to walk it into the centre if the van is not permitted.
Other options for mattress recycling in Manchester
In the face of lack of convenience when it comes to council collection or being able to get a mattress out of the house and transported to an accessible recycling site, the services of Collect Your Old Bed are a positive alternative.Convenience is assured, starting with being able to select a date which suits and with the fact that Collect Your Old Bed’s professional teams will come onsite to remove mattresses from the premises, before then transporting the items to a suitable recycling point.Collect Your Old Bed’s service also offers the benefit of a quick and easy process to arrange collection, see our Click 2 Collect page:
Recycling the product, not dumping the problem
Whilst fly-tipping the Greater Manchester area with beds and mattresses is clearly not eco-friendly, one of the hidden unfriendly factors of disposal is that landfill is not a suitable alternative either.Although landfill is a cheaper method for councils to dispose of mattresses they collect, the cost to the local environment can be considerable: steel spring components do not biodegrade, but instead cause a hazard by sitting in the ground; chemicals from fire-retardant mattress fabrics seep into the earth and find their way into water systems, for example.Recycling is the most responsible way to dispose of your old mattress. Collect Your Old Bed guarantees that once your mattress is picked up, 100% of its components will be recycled:
- Mattress foam – is recycled into carpet padding and underlay.
- Fibres and fabrics – are extracted, separated and recycled into new textile products.
- Steel springs – can be recycled repeatedly with no loss of performance into a variety of alternative products.
- Box springs – all wood parts are chipped and can be recycled into mulch, animal bedding and even fuel.
This makes it easy to see how, when disposed of by a reputable company, recycling bed products can be an easy and environmentally-sound choice, which can improve not only the local Greater Manchester environment, but also the global one.