Mattress Disposal Calgary

Why charities will not take your old mattress

Almost every Alberta charity and thrift operation refuses used mattresses outright, and it is not fussiness. Health regulations around used bedding are strict, the risk of bed bugs is real and expensive, and the organisations that once accepted them stopped because a single infested donation can contaminate a warehouse.

That leaves resale, which is realistically only viable for a nearly-new mattress with a receipt, or disposal. For everything else, the honest answer is that it needs to be hauled and processed.

What actually happens to a mattress

A mattress is roughly 25 cubic feet of mostly recoverable material, which is why straight landfilling is wasteful. Broken down, a typical set yields steel from the innerspring and the box spring frame, softwood from the box spring, foam, and textile.

The steel is genuinely valuable and goes to scrap. Where a recycling route is available for the foam and textile, that is where it goes. Where it is not — and that varies by what the facilities are accepting — the remainder goes to landfill and we pay the tipping fee.

We are not going to overstate this. Not every mattress gets fully diverted. Pulling the steel out is worth doing regardless, and we do it.

Bed bugs: tell us before we arrive

If the mattress is being replaced because of bed bugs, say so when you book. There is no judgment in it — Calgary has plenty of it, particularly in multi-unit buildings — and it changes how the item has to be handled.

An infested mattress should be sealed in a mattress bag before it leaves the room, precisely so the problem does not spread through the hallway, the elevator and the truck. It also cannot go into a recycling stream and has to be landfilled.

Telling us up front costs you nothing and means the job is done properly. Not telling us risks spreading it through your own building.