This article appeared in the February 2025 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.
Finding a niche and keeping materials separated and clean are crucial to building recycling programs that go beyond the everyday commodities, leaders of programs that collect items as diverse as Solo cups, streetlights, swimming pool lane dividers and plastic drums for soft drink flavorings said.

“We’re able to get top dollar because we’re sorting it all very specifically,” said Andy Kizzee, director of the nonprofit Binghampton Development Corporation in Memphis, Tennessee, which for the past three years has been one of perhaps only two groups in the U.S. that dismantle old streetlights to recover individual components made of copper, aluminum, glass and other materials.

The organization has processed more than 78,000 lights from projects replacing sodium fixtures with LEDs in Memphis, Nashville and other cities, Kizzee said. Each light contains around $7 or $8 worth of parts that in the standard scrap metal trade would typically be shredded and divvied up among a long chain of scrappers, haulers and exporters, he added: “We’re able to unlock all of that value in one spot by manually disassembling it.”

And while any recycling operation needs to collect enough volume to make shipments economical, even an organization of modest size can get in on the uncommon and unusual side of recycling.

“This MRF being as tiny as it is has advantages,” said Nick Kluge, assistant director of waste recovery services for the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, where staff and volunteers accommodate impromptu collections from every sort of research and student activity. He recalled the agricultural side of campus asking him about the possibility of recycling the plastic tags used in plant nurseries, for example.

“So we set up another gaylord” and started collecting, Kluge said. “Sure enough, once a year we send out six, eight hundred pounds of these things” to a buyer.

Finding a niche

Laurel Harrop was 23 when she became a recycling entrepreneur in 2011, launching Laurel Environmental Group to recycle lighting fixtures, working her way up from interior lighting to streetlights. An old family friend and blacksmith from Wisconsin provided the key, fabricating hydraulic presses for her that could pop out a streetlight’s insides.

“We came up with a process and a system,” she said in an interview, and before long her company was the go-to streetlight recycler for major cities throughout the U.S. A San Diego project processing 35,000 fixtures was her breakout. Hundreds of thousands more have followed; the company is now in the process of doing 130,000 lights for Philadelphia.

“This business is one of those that people just don’t know is even going on,” Harrop said, adding she’s not aware of any others in the field besides BDC, the Memphis nonprofit. “I always enjoyed that we were doing something good here.”

The BDC following her example happened almost by accident, Kizzee said. The organization focuses on building workplace skills and experience for people who need the help, such as those with histories of substance abuse or with the criminal justice system. A few years ago the nonprofit partnered with an energy services company that was involved with streetlight conversions in the region and was interested in using BDC’s warehouse space.

BDC had already begun working on recycling tires, polystyrene and mattresses, as reported in this magazine and in the November 2024 issue, “Expanding the tire recycling front.” So Kizzee spent a few weeks prying apart a few dozen fixtures and developing a concept for a new recycling stream.

That led to processing fixtures for Memphis’ conversion project in 2023 and now Nashville’s own ongoing project, which is nearly zero-waste after BDC connected with a nearby glass recycling company, Kizzee said.
“A trailer of about 1,300 fixtures gets filled up over two weeks, and then it drives here,” he said.

Harrop said the work’s been so successful that the jobs are starting to slow down in California and elsewhere. She compared it to the phasing out of CRT televisions — there are only so many out there.

“I used to think I’d find another niche in recycling like that,” Harrop said, though she’s been increasingly focused on another company she started that sells canned beverages. “But you never know. I want to keep doing this until it’s done.”

Keeping it pure

Wil Ross, executive vice president of sales and procurement at Alternative Plastics in northwest Arkansas, has made a career of finding, processing and selling an esoteric assortment of olefin plastics.

Toilet seats and other fixtures, barrels that held food and drink flavors, totes and pallets from the area’s poultry industry, bread crates from bakeries, car bumpers and dashboards, retail and yard signs, plastic shotgun shell casings — all of these things and more have come through his facility for pelletization and resale to manufacturers.

“I do a lot of cold calling,” said Ross, who makes a point of visiting the industrial parks within a few hundred miles to make connections and learn about manufacturers, the recycled resin they might need and what they do with their waste, such as excess trimmings or defective products. Alternative Plastics takes care to keep shipments and plastic types separate at all times for purity and quality control, Ross added, because buyers are picky.

“Plastics is so diverse. Paper’s paper, you can’t really change paper. But plastics is just ridiculous,” he said. “We know what everything is prior to it coming in, so when we run it, we run that thing and that thing only. It makes it a hell of a lot easier.”

Kluge applies the same meticulous separation to the University of Minnesota’s waste recovery department, allowing it to resell soundproofing panels from music rooms for reuse, for instance, and to recycle plastic pipettes from chemistry labs, which go to nearby manufacturer Avon Plastics for landscaping items. Solo cups, swim lane dividers, interior lighting fixtures, plastic carriers for aluminum cans, and CDs and their cases are collected, too.

Souvenir cups from the athletics department might have presented a challenge because of their label wrapping, but “if you keep them segregated as their own type, just souvenir cups, then they can be recycled again,” Kluge said.

He partly credited the university’s in-house control of its material streams for the programs’ success. The university has its own fleet of trucks, small MRF and a reuse warehouse.

“Those three together make us extremely unique,” Kluge said. “You gain control of the materials from the loading dock to as far as you want to take it.”

And while the campus has achieved a diversion rate of around 55%, he said, it’s also in the process of developing a zero-waste plan with RRS this year: “We’re very proud, but we know we could do better.”

This article appeared in the February 2025 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.

Combining mattress recycling with social and workforce services has emerged as a consistent approach around the country as more of the U.S. gradually begins recycling its mattresses and bedsprings for scrap metal, wood and other materials, several program leaders said in recent interviews.

“We create job opportunities for those in need of second chances — recovering drug addicts and homeless veterans — ensuring people don’t fall through the cracks of the economy,” said Ryan Tiano, chief operations officer of Isaiah 58 Inc., a Nashville nonprofit operating Spring Back Mattress Recycling out of locations in Nashville, Colorado and Utah. The organization hires people who have completed or are enrolled in a drug and alcohol recovery program, sober living facility or transitional home.

Combined, the three Spring Back programs recycle approximately 150,000 mattresses per year, or more than 9 million cubic feet of landfill space.

“These groups face enormous barriers to successfully re-entering society, making it nearly impossible to find work and achieve financial independence,” Tiano said. “Our team assists these people in combating social injustice and creating transitional employment opportunities.”

The successes of Spring Back and other organizations like it come as mattress recycling policies slowly expand. Oregon in January joined California, Connecticut and Rhode Island in implementing a statewide mattress program. These states impose a flat fee ranging from $16 to $22.50 on every mattress or box spring purchased, whether online or in stores. The fees fund recycling programs managed by the bedding industry-backed Mattress Recycling Council.

Among the three original states, more than 15 million mattresses have been recycled, resulting in 500 million pounds of recycled material. This year the International Sleep Products Association, the council’s founder, is also lobbying for similar legislation in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia.

“Our expansion into Oregon reflects the bedding industry’s commitment to recycling,” Mike O’Donnell, MRC’s chief operating officer, said in a written statement. “We’re grateful for the support of Oregon’s solid waste community, mattress retailers and manufacturers as we embark on this exciting new chapter.”

Breaking down the basics

Up to 75% of a mattress can be recycled, with steel springs, foam padding, wood frames and fabrics finding new life in various industries, said Tom Smith, marketing manager for the MRC.

“Steel, in particular, finds a robust market,” he said. “In traditional box springs, slinky-like steel springs are cut out, compacted by recyclers, and sometimes shredded before being baled and sold in the scrap market.”

The evolution of mattress design has introduced pocket coils — individual high-carbon steel springs wrapped in polypropylene fabric sleeves. While they present challenges in separation, demand for scrap ferrous steel remains high. Older Bonnell coils, known for their hourglass shape and high carbon content, also boast a strong resale market when properly processed.

“The foam padding is popular with those in the carpet industry,” Smith said. “Most of this material is polyurethane, which is collected and compressed into giant bales. It is then repurposed into carpet padding.”

Wood from the mattress frames typically ends up being ground into compost or processed for biomass fuel. However, the presence of staples in the wooden frames complicates these reuse efforts.

The textiles from mattress toppers face a tougher market due to low demand. Some of this fabric can be converted into insulation, while innovative experiments are underway to transform it through a baking process into carbon elements for use in batteries, potentially powering electric vehicles, Smith noted.

“Pilot projects are also exploring the use of foam as a concrete additive, enhancing strength,” Smith said. “Another innovative initiative is investigating the foam’s potential for use as an oil spill absorbent, providing an eco-friendly alternative to newly manufactured sponges. Researchers are also working on transforming foam into pellets that can be molded into various products such as cell phone cases and industrial gaskets.”

Landfill disposal brings its own challenges, with mattresses often requiring up to 100 years to break down completely and sometimes getting stuck in compactors. The Mattress Recycling Council reports that every ton of discarded mattresses recycled preserves 99 cubic yards of landfill. Considering Americans dispose of an estimated 15 to 20 million mattresses each year, that’s a lot of space that recycling efforts can save.

The number of mattresses that MRC has recycled has grown over the past decade. However, after a peak in the final years of the pandemic, the growth has slowed or remained flat, depending upon the state.

“Recycling mattresses is important because it conserves valuable resources; and by using mattress materials to make new products, energy is saved, water is conserved and greenhouse gas emissions are prevented,” O’Donnell said. “It also supports local economies by creating jobs and preventing illegal dumping.”

At the local level

The MRC manages the state “Bye Bye Mattress” programs by using collected fees to contract with local governments or private haulers to establish drop-off sites, including at landfills or transfer stations, and with recycling organizations that dismantle the mattresses. It also organizes bulk pickups from institutions like hotels and colleges.

In Long Beach, California, an estimated 18,000 mattresses are illegally dumped in Long Beach each year, which was the catalyst for the Department of Public Works’ Clean Team hosting mattress drop-off events on the first Saturday of every month in April 2023. The program was aimed at reducing blight and the potential health risk associated with illegally dumped mattresses by eliminating homes for pests like rats and insects.

The city sends collected mattresses to an MRC facility, where they are cut open and sorted by material type. A 90-day pilot program for 24/7 mattress drop off began last August and was made permanent in November, allowing residents to drop off mattresses free of charge.

“The mattress drop-off program provides a convenient and accessible option for Long Beach residents to properly dispose of used mattresses,” said Jose Bedolla, Clean Team superintendent for the city. “By offering this service year-round, the city’s Clean Team can redirect their efforts from collecting illegally dumped mattresses in public spaces to other critical services that maintain a healthy and safe environment.”

He added that diverting mattress materials from landfills not only reduces the amount of waste generated in Long Beach but also brings the city closer to its emissions reduction goals. Residents that can’t bring their mattresses to the drop-off site can still recycle their mattresses responsibly by requesting a special collection online or by phone.

Bedolla noted that while Long Beach’s mattress recycling program doesn’t provide direct job training, it does utilize the assistance of the Conservation Corps of Long Beach, which provides workforce development
opportunities for young adults.

A helping hand

A number of mattress recycling programs have a secondary component of social assistance, as they offer people who are down on their luck — those recently out of prison or rehab, those part of disadvantaged communities and so on — the chance to build basic job skills.

A group of Belmont University students came up with the idea for Spring Back Recycling in 2012, then partnered with Belmont Church and their Isaiah 58 ministry to enact it in Nashville, said Tiano, the Isaiah 58 chief operation officer. Two years later, Spring Back partnered with the Davidson County Sheriff Department to provide transitional employment to inmates upon release and recycled more than 80,000 mattresses that year.

Over time, the program grew to working with multiple halfway houses in the area to employ and teach life skills to people recovering from substance abuse and addiction.

“People generally need a place to live and a positive environment, and then they need something to do every day that is safe,” Tiano said. “We put this idea into play and made it work, and learned along the way. We wanted to change the lives of men, and therefore their families and the community for the better.”

Originally, the thought was that Spring Back would be franchised, but while that didn’t happen, the idea was shared with other organizations and new independently-owned locations popped up around the U.S., including in Salt Lake City and Commerce City, Colorado.

Workers at all three facilities slash, tear apart and crush mattresses to separate out foam, cotton, steel, wood and the fabric, and the materials go into items like car seats, dog beds, carpet padding and insulation.

Tiano noted there are tons of success stories of men whose lives have changed because of the program, but one of his favorite examples is someone who started recycling mattresses 10 years ago, had multiple children and was fresh out of jail for failing to pay child support. He’s now the warehouse manager for Spring Back Nashville.

“He now has his own place, his own car, and two years ago he got full custody of his 11-year-old daughter,” Tiano said. “The generational effect of that is tremendous. You’re not only changing his life, but the life of his daughter as well.”

Andy Kizzee, business hub director of Binghampton Development Corporation, a nonprofit in Memphis, Tennessee, said its mattress recycling program also was inspired by Spring Back. BDC processes around 200-400 mattresses a month. More than 100 people have taken part in the program, with almost half now employed in full-time jobs elsewhere.

“We’re hoping to grow and break into larger quantities from retailers and bigger institutions,” Kizzee said.
Second Chance Recycling in Minnesota began mattress recycling in 2008. Four years later, it teamed with Furnish Office & Home and Rebuild Resources to form Momentum Enterprises, which then merged with Emerge Community Development in 2015 to focus on community impact.

“Emerge helps people find work and get off welfare, so Second Chance is pretty much staffed by those recently released from incarceration or as condition of their parole; we don’t ask questions, we bring them in and help them,” said Shawn Dolan, general manager of Second Chance. “We teach them good work skills and how to recycle the mattresses, and this is transitional employment.”

The training can include forklift training, safety and security. Those in the program learn the proper way to cut and dismantle the different mattress components, with runners moving and separating the materials into bailers and other equipment.

“The metal is all bailed into large 250-pound rolls and goes to metal recyclers, and that has the most consistent demand,” Dolan said. “The wood from the box springs are crushed into a compactor, and wood recyclers will then grind them for mulch. We bail a bunch of cotton as well, which goes to a textile recycler and turns it into new fabric.”

By recycling 70,000 mattresses a year, Second Chance Recycling keeps the equivalent of a full year of waste from more than 2,800 households out of landfills. Many are picked up from residents, and others come from retailers, mattress manufacturers, hotels and multifamily properties.

“People don’t have any idea how hard it is for mattresses to decompose; it’s a huge fire risk, they don’t crush and take up an enormous amount of room,” Dolan said. “There are hundreds of thousands of mattresses that don’t get recycled, and more needs to be done.”