Housing recycles, reuses mattresses

In the past three years, University Housing has recycled approximately 900 mattresses by giving them to organizations that can reuse them.

Since the average life span for a mattress is six to ten years, University Housing tries to rotate mattresses so that no mattress is over seven years old. In order to do this, approximately 300 mattresses are replaced each summer.

Executive Director of University Housing Larry Christenson feels the program is an improvement to the previous situation.

“It feels good to know there is a place they can be used instead of put in a landfill,” Christenson said.

Though Christenson liked the idea, there were logistical problems to deal with.

“One problem with donating mattresses is the fact that they are state property, so we have to get permission from the state to dispose of them,” Christenson said.

Since the item is a physical item bought with government funds the state must approve for the mattresses to be reused elsewhere. Once permission is granted, GCSU is responsible for the costs of disposing of the mattresses.

Prior to recycling the mattresses, it cost $5 to $12 per mattress to dispose in a landfill, so donating the mattresses is actually saving the school money.

Two years ago, mattresses from The Village buildings 1, 2 and 3 were shipped to a charity in Indiana. The labor of switching out the mattresses was provided by the Bobcats baseball team as a fundraiser, and instead of paying the cost of a landfill GCSU helped pay part of the shipping costs.

Last year mattresses from Wells Hall were replaced. These mattresses were removed and recycled by the mattress company.

This year was Foundation Hall’s turn. These mattresses were sent to a church camp in South Carolina. The labor to move out the old mattresses and bring in the new was provided by a group of students.

“Even though we all had to be up at 8 a.m. on Saturday, we had a great time moving the mattresses out of Foundation,” said sophomore pre-education major Kalie Aiken. “At the end we saw the huge pile of old mattresses and it was so satisfying to know we had moved that many.”

Senior psychology major Evin Winkelman was the one who brought this idea to University Housing. Winkelman attended a church camp over the summer whose mattresses were donated by Vanderbilt University and thought that GCSU should get involved as well.

Winkelman has been working at University Housing since her sophomore year, when she decided to put her plan into action.

“I took this information to Mr. Larry and he loved the idea,” Winkelman said.

Finding these groups is challenging because many organizations do not need the large number of mattresses that GCSU switches out each year.

Donating mattresses is not only beneficial for the organizations or groups receiving them, however. Students who live in University Housing are also benefiting from the exchange with no mattress being older than seven years.

Comfort is not the only reason this swap is favorable to students. The new mattresses that are purchased have an inverted seam, meaning there are no seams on the outside of the mattress. Inverted seams make it very difficult for bed bugs to get into the mattresses which is a great plus for students.

In future years, University Housing hopes to continue recycling mattresses to charities and organizations that can use them.

Posted by Bobbi Otis on Nov 5 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.