Columbia, SC (WLTX) - Your mattress is a key factor in helping you get a good night's sleep, but after seven years it doesn't support you the same way.
When you upgrade to a new one, don't throw it away, recycle it.
Workers at the Richland County Landfill work to compact waste to make room for more. One thing they hope to keep out - is your old mattress. Jerome Taylor is helping by dropping his off to get recycled.
"It's just easy to bring them down here than to sit them beside the road and let it sit there for a couple of days," said Taylor.
Taylor says he's been recycling since he moved back to Richland County five years ago and he's not alone.
Numbers from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control show Lexington and Richland Counties lead the state in mattress recycling.
In the six years since the program began, Richland County leaders say they've seen huge increases in recycling, mattresses. In the first year, 40 tons were recycled. Now, more than 300 tons.
Art Braswell, the Director of Richland County Solid Waste, says mattresses are tough to manage in landfills and take up a lot of space.
"A lot of people think mattress recycling think that we are just reusing the mattresses, but we don't do that. The mattress is actually broken down into many different components," Braswell said.
Braswell says the foam in the mattress is made into carpet padding, the metals are recovered and sent to a scrap metal recycler and the wood products are given away to build other things or used as firewood.
Braswell said, "We don't look for anything special. We take all mattresses, pretty much. We get a good number every week. Load them off and ship them off to our recycler."
"You're not junking up your neighborhood by putting stuff beside the road or putting it behind your house or throwing it in the woods like I see a lot of people do," Taylor said.
You can drop off your mattress at the county recycling center 1070 Caughman Road North which is off Monticello Road or at the Lower Richland site off Garners Ferry Road.
If you can't haul it yourself, you can call to schedule a pick-up at 929-6000.