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Mattress recycling to improve London waste disposal

4th July 2014 by Alessandro Maccioni

London is soon to play host to a new mattress recycling plant and improved bedding recycling programme following the release of grants from the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) of around £140,000. Disposing of mattresses and bedding has long been an issue here in London, with many mattresses ending up in landfills when they could have been recycled or even cleaned and reused. In fact, as can be seen from a quick walk down some London streets, a good proportion of mattresses make it only as far as the pavement where they sit illegally and soak up good old British rain showers! Therefore, a mattress recycling plant really could be London’s saving grace when it comes to bulky bedding waste. The plant, which is set to be constructed in Greenford, West London is anticipated to divert a significant proportion of the thousands of mattresses destined for a mucky, landfill home to a better end. Alongside this, another project will focus on waste bedding, salvaging reams of material through a specific recycling scheme.

Mattress fly tipping in London. Photo taken by Alan Stanton, no changes made, Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

Mattress fly tipping in London. Photo taken by Alan Stanton, no changes made, Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

This all comes as a further step in the ongoing work and success of the LWARB, following the establishment of their Textile Reuse and Recycling Fund last year, which in its first allocation of funding backed, amongst other things, initiatives enabling easy clothing and carpet recycling. Here at JunkWize, we’re big fans of any scheme that helps to promote and enable more efficient recycling in London, so let’s hope that these latest projects get off to a great start. Yet what always shocks us is just how hard it is to make lasting change in the waste and recycling industry. Of all the different issues we are all faced with in making the right decisions about our daily rubbish disposal, when we consider the problem of waste in the UK, it seems to stem primarily from the fact that people just don’t know their options when it comes to disposing of junk that isn’t typical household waste. However, there are in fact many simple options available. Local councils will arrange to collect large domestic items for a small fee, as will private rubbish collection firms, and it’s always a smart move to get junk cleared as promptly as possible to ensure you don’t get slapped with a fly-tipping or littering fine which is likely probably leave you significantly more out of pocket!

Overall, our options for making easy and responsible decisions about waste disposal and recycling are growing by the year, so we shouldn’t fail to utilise all options available to us. There’s a world of information online that will inform you of everything from domestic recycling guidelines to the best way to get rid/ pass on of items which are still in good nick, you’ll even find instructions for some really cool upcycling projects. Whilst we wait in anticipation for our very own mattress recycling centre here in the capital, we urge you all to keep on getting rid of your junk in a responsible manner – and that’s something we can most definitely help you out with!

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