The trashman will no longer pick up people’s used, stained, smelly or otherwise funkified mattresses in Sweetwater County.

The Rock Springs Landfill won’t bury them anymore, either. The used, gnarly, sweaty, unwanted giant cushions of coil and memory foam simply take up too much space.

Instead, mattresses are being sent to Utah for recycling instead of taking up space in a Wyoming landfill. It’s part of a long-term goal to save space and material, and has already exceeded expectations.  

The drawback: It’s up to county residents to bring their mattresses to the local drop-off point themselves. And that’s what residents will have to do if they want to get rid of them.

Sweetwater County Solid Waste District No. 1 is no longer burying mattresses in its landfill, and Wyoming Waste Systems — which collects trash throughout central and southern Wyoming — is no longer collecting them.

“We started on Oct. 1, and we’ve already diverted 178 mattresses,” said Dan Chetterbock, general manager of the Rock Springs Landfill. “And we can already see the benefits.”

Too Much Fill

The new no-mattress policy was given the green light to save space and hassle at the Rock Springs Landfill.

“The idea behind the landfill is to pack everything in until there’s no airspace,” said Michelle Foote, site manager for Wyoming Waste Systems in Rock Springs. “A mattress does not compact or decompose. They don’t want them in the landfill.”

Chetterbock said mattresses are particularly problematic for the machinery constantly compacting the perpetually growing layers of trash.

“I’ve seen mattresses wrap around compactor wheels and break machinery,” he said. “Mattresses do not compact. We wanted to extend the lifespan of the landfill and give the community a different avenue to get rid of their mattresses.”

Spring Back

Spring Back Recycling is a nonprofit organization with programs in Utah, Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington. It recycles or repurposes up to 95% of mattresses’ components for various uses, repurposing materials that would otherwise be squandered in landfills.

“We work with residents, municipalities, landfills and transfer stations to create as much landfill and waste diversion as we can,” said Peter Conway, president of Spring Back Colorado. “We extract the cotton, foam, steel and wood from each mattress and ship those materials to our recycling partners.”

Conway added that Spring Back Recycling employs “disenfranchised” people who are in drug and alcohol recovery centers, recently released from incarceration or “just trying to find footing in society.”

“Redemptive employment helps these folks find stable employment, get long-term housing, and become tax-paying members of society,” he said. “And, in the process, we’re diverting millions of pounds of materials from landfills each year.”

Same Place, Different Destination

When a Sweetwater County resident wants to dispose of a mattress, it still goes to the Rock Springs Landfill. It just doesn’t end up inside it.

Spring Back Utah drops an empty Convex container at the landfill for people to drop off their mattresses. When it’s full, usually around 60-70 mattresses, the container is transported to the recycling facility in Salt Lake City.

Storing the discarded mattresses keeps them in a good enough condition to be recycled. That’s why Wyoming Waste Systems no longer takes them out with the trash.

“The mattresses have got to stay dry,” Foote said. “The company must do certain things with them to make them reusable or whatever they do to recycle them. The landfill still accepts mattresses. We just don’t mix them with the trash when we pick it up.”

Cost Sharing

Spring Back Recycling pays trucking companies to pick up and drop off the containers and passes those costs to its partners and customers. That means Sweetwater County is paying to keep the landfill mattress-free.

Chetterbock said Sweetwater County Solid Waste District No. 1’s mill levy covers the cost of transporting the mattresses from Rock Springs to Salt Lake City. However, residents outside the district incur some additional costs.

“If you live in or are a district resident, there’s no cost to you,” he said. “That cost was absorbed in the mill levy. We charge $35 per mattress for anyone outside our district and for in-district businesses.”

The cost of transporting mattresses out of the landfill is offset by the benefits of eliminating mattresses from ending up inside. Landfills don’t want them, and Spring Back Recycling is ready to take them.

Less Space, Better Space

After one month of the new mattress recycling program, Chetterbock is impressed with the results. Mattresses occasionally show up in garbage trucks, but none make it into the landfill.

“We’re seeing the benefits in airspace right away,” he said. “Our software is showing greater compaction between what we had before and what we have now.”

Chetterbock anticipated Spring Back Utah would make one trip a month to the Rock Springs Landfill to pick up and replace the mattress container. Since Oct. 1, they’ve already made three trips and are getting close to needing a fourth.

“It’s better air space utilization and better utilization of the mattresses,” he said. “I think it’s going really good, and we’re happy with the results so far.”

Do It Yourself (For Now)

While the occasional mattress still ends up in a garbage truckload, no mattresses are going into the Rock Springs Landfill. The challenge for Sweetwater County residents is that they’ll have to find their own way to get their mattresses there.

“Customers are asked to transport mattresses to the landfill directly,” she said. “All of our drivers have specific routes that they go out on every day, so we don’t have the manpower or the time to pick up mattresses.”

Chetterbock said that hasn’t been an issue so far.

“Other than some commercial loads and roll-off bins from waste haulers, everybody that hauls mattresses here hasn’t had a problem putting them where they need to go when they get out here,” he said.

Cycling Upward

Sweetwater County isn’t the only Wyoming community that’s expressed an interest in recycling mattresses. Conway said he’s been approached by other Wyoming communities about starting their own mattress recycling programs.

“I advised them that if they could figure out a way to get them to us, we can definitely recycle them,” he said.

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.