Connecticut to Charge Recycling Levy on New Mattresses

A bipartisan bill in Connecticut has passed through the Connecticut Senate which authorises an industry-led non-profit organisation to create and run a mattress recycling council to set and collect a consumer fee that will fund recycling. The International Sleep Products Association (ISPA) said that it helped to negotiate the proposed new recycling legislation, which was approved by a 28-8 vote and to will now go to Connecticut Governor, Dannel Malloy, for consideration. Malloy has approximately 15 days to decide whether to sign the bill into law. The ISPA said that the bill would establish a recycling program with a sustainable funding mechanism that will not harm the mattress industry, and will create the nation’s first mattress recycling law of its kind. The bill was supported in its journey through the Senate by Senator Andres Ayala, who said that hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year by municipalities which are forced to deal with discarded mattresses littering the streets. “This bill establishes a program that will hire Connecticut residents to safely dispose of residents, ensuring that we no longer have to foot the bill for a neighbour’s trash," commented the Senator. Difficult to dispose of According to Ayala discarded mattresses are large and often difficult to dispose of, and while mattresses are made of recyclable metal, foam, cotton, and cloth, the disassembly process needed for recycling is very labour intensive. As a result, the Senator claimed that Connecticut has seen mattresses stacked up in landfills, or left discarded on the street. Furthermore, Ayala noted that the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities has estimated that on any given day in Connecticut, there are 10,000 abandoned mattresses littered around the state. The Senator added that the cost to dispose of these discarded mattresses has become out of hand, and cited the City of Hartford (pictured) which has spent as much as $400,000 in a single year to deal with unwanted mattresses. Funding The bill as passed by the Senate would establish a non-profit mattress recycling council, comprised of all mattress manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers in Connecticut, or their designees. The council would then be charged with designing a mattress recycling or disposal program by mid-2014 that will be funded by a small fee on all mattresses sold in Connecticut. The program will prioritise recycling of mattresses over outright disposal whenever it is economically practical to do so. The ISPA said that it is also currently working on similar legislation in other states where we it intends to lobby for a program that reduces the impact of illegally dumped mattresses, harnesses existing infrastructure for transporting used mattresses to recyclers, creates jobs, and minimises costs to both government and consumers. Read More 2500 TPD Recycling Plant Planned in California California based Universal Waste Systems has proposed developing a new material recycling facility at its current site in northern Santa Fe Springs. Homicide Fear as Mummified Head Found at Californian Recycling Plant A mummified human head, potentially from a homicide, has been found at a West Oakland recycling center in California. VIDEO: Coca-Cola Research on Bottle Recycling Behaviour Coca-Cola is conducting a study with ten British households to understand why recycling rates are so low despite people expressing strong beliefs towards environmental behaviours.