Usel and Harvey Norman Join Forces to Combat Mattress Waste

It is estimated there is presently 215,000 tonnes of mattresses in landfills across the UK. Each mattress consumes 23 cubic feet of airspace. The discarded mattresses are difficult to compact, consume valuable landfill space and can take years to decompose. Their steel innersprings tear up landfill equipment, and they can also absorb hazardous materials into flammable air pockets, causing landfill fire.

In this collaborative partnership Usel and the Harvey Norman Home Centre on Boucher Road and Harvey Norman Holywood Superstore will tackle this growing issue in Northern Ireland. Harvey Norman offers all of their customers the service of having their old mattress collected when their new mattress is being delivered.

These mattresses will be disassembled into various components at Usel recycling facilities in North Belfast. The components will then be segregated and sent on to other facilities for further processing and reused in a number of different ways such as carpet underlay, acoustic dampening in cars and the steel springs are sent to a local metal recycler to be melted down for reuse. Usel are the only organisation in the province to provide this recycling service.

Scott Jackson, Circular Economy Manager commented “We are very grateful to be involved in this partnership with Harvey Norman and leading the mattress recycling industry within Northern Ireland. There are 1.7 million mattresses in Northern Ireland, over 80% of each mattress can be recycled into other products and diverted from landfill sites.”

 Robbie Auckram, Harvey Norman Bedding General Manager added "We are extremely proud to be driving the mattress recycling initiative with Usel. We are continually investing in our Northern Ireland stores; opening the Harvey Norman Home Centre on Boucher Road over a year ago and most recently renovating the Harvey Norman Superstore, Holywood. We are very excited about our future in Northern Ireland and this local partnership."