Since late 2020 Lismore City Council has been trialling a program to recycle mattresses and keep them out of landfill.

The program aims to minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill, reduce methane gases being produced from decomposing mattresses and recycle end-of-life waste products by turning them into a resource.

Council annually receives more than 4000 mattresses annually at the Lismore Recycling and Recovery Centre.

Lismore City Council's waste operations coordinator Kevin Trustum said previously residents would bring out their mattresses with their waste and they'd go straight into landfill.

"Because of the springs in them, they won't compact, even with our heavy compactors," he said.

Historically mattresses were sent to landfill, however, under the new program mattresses are sent to a dedicated resource recovery facility where the mattresses are processed into separate commodities for which there are end markets.

During the initial trail period we have collected and transported 1940 mattresses or 70 tonnes of mattresses, helping to save 1552 cubic metres of landfill.

100% of the mattress materials are reused and recycled with the stripped metals reused as railway wheels, foam repurposed into carpet underlay, material utilised in decorative wall panels and the remaining products, including floc, wood and plastic, processed as biofuel.

"I see that we can save around 3000 cubic metres of space from recycling old mattresses," Mr Trustum said.

"It's high tensile steel in the springs so there is a market for that.

"The foam can be made into boxing bag filler and in some cases other waste from the mattresses can be used to generate electricity."

The cost to deposit mattresses at the Lismore Recycling and Recovery Centre from 1 July 2021 is $25 per mattress which reflects the cost of having them recycled.

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