Retired mattresses? Well, if you're a hotel chain, you have lots of them as rooms are renovated or the mattress wears out. Just throwing them out is an increasingly difficult choice, with new environmental efforts. Even so, according to the Mattress Recycling Council, about 50,000 mattresses a day go to the dump.
Hilton Hotels recycles thousands of mattresses and springs a year, and is five years into a plan to let nothing go to waste. Hilton now claims that 95% of every ditched mattress is going to other use. Soft fibers and foam are compressed to use as carpet padding, upholstery stuffing and more. Metal and wood parts are reclaimed separately.
The scale of the effort is surprisingly large. For instance, the Chicago O'Hare Airport Hilton replaced all its mattresses and springs last month, taking a whole month to swap out 2,725 mattresses and springs. The recycling program, the company says, saved more than 90 tons of materials from the landfill.
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