BedShred.com, an initiative of The Charleston Mattress, is committed to keeping your old mattress out of landfills through aggressive recycling techniques. Every discarded mattress is destroyed and recycled, meaning components are never refurbished or reused in bedding again.

The process leaves only 10% of each mattress being discarded as compacted waste. The effort is in collaboration with Nine Lives Recycling in Pamplico, SC where the mattresses are stored and materials processed on a 12-acre former tobacco farm.

The foam and quilted foam are pulled from the old mattresses, baled, and then turned over to carpet manufacturers for extensive cleaning and processing for eventual use in carpet padding.

The coils are delivered to a scrap yard for traditional steel recycling. There are millions of uses for recycled steel, including bicycle spokes.

Wood from a boxspring is made available to the community for free and is used for mulch and various reclamation projects. Polyester is collected and recycled into usable polyester. The team is currently seeking a market for this material. One possibility is polyester ratchet straps.

Mattresses are a problem for landfills. Many national retailers are only offering one-sided mattresses and directing consumers to replace them more often. Landfills are seeing an influx of mattresses. The compaction rate of a discarded mattress is 400% less than regular garbage. A cubic yard of compacted garbage typically weighs between 1,500 and 1,800 lbs. A cubic yard of compacted mattresses weighs about 250 lbs. and can leave voids in the ground.

We never want to see something that’s reusable, like steel, buried forever. However, recycling mattresses is a difficult and arduous process, and there have been numerous failed attempts. BedShred is willing to take the lead on this in South Carolina, and we're excited about repurposing these materials instead of adding unnecessary waste to the environment. With the knowledge we gain, we will work on improving technology related to mattress recycling for future generations.