The Mattress Recycling Council is a nonprofit organization established by the mattress industry to create and manage state-level recycling programs. Using fees that retailers collect from consumers, MRC contracts with service providers to collect and recycle mattresses.
The MRC board members, who serve staggered two-year terms, are Ryan Trainer, International Sleep Products Association; Catherine Lyons, ISPA; Dale Carlsen, Sleep Train; Richard Diamonstein, Paramount Sleep; Doug Guffey, Sleep Inc.; Dan Hige, Tempur Sealy International; Matt Kershner, Select Comfort Corp.; Mark Kolovson, King Koil Northeast; and Kristin McGuffey, Serta Simmons Holdings LLC. Diamonstein is chairman.
Mike O’Donnell, MRC program director, was hired last fall to run MRC. He has spent two decades working on municipal hazardous household waste collection issues and was involved in PaintCare, a multistate paint recycling program, and a Product Care light bulb recycling initiative in Washington.
“MRC will set up and facilitate the recycling programs. We won’t recycle the mattresses ourselves. We will contract that function out,” O’Donnell says. “Our job is also to listen to stakeholders to provide effective programs at the lowest cost.”
The MRC website is a good source for the latest information about mattress recycling. Eventually, it also will contain a list of contracted recyclers in the three states with recycling laws (currently California, Connecticut and Rhode Island), portals where companies register and where retailers remit recycling fees, and materials retailers can use to educate consumers about the fees and the value of mattress recycling.
Read the BedTimes August feature, “Mattress recycling 2014–Everything you need to know.”
If you have specific questions about industry recycling efforts, email [email protected].
