To Eugene-based nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County (SVdP), consumer discarded mattresses represent a valuable resource to create stable, full-time jobs and generate revenue to address our community’s most pressing challenges. SVdP’s interconnected core service areas—affordable housing, homeless, shelter and emergency services, and waste-base business enterprises—work together to disrupt homelessness and poverty in our community.
 
Over the last two and half decades, St. Vinnie’s has diverted millions of mattresses from landfills across the Pacific Northwest while offering second-chance employment and skill-building opportunities to people with barriers in the traditional job market. This year, we will continue to expand that legacy through increased recycling rates thanks to our local partnership with Waste Wise Lane County and an exciting new mattress stewardship law, House Bill 1576, that will mean free, accessible recycling for consumers across Oregon.
 
But first, how did we get here? 

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One of the most burdensome waste products, mattresses have long been the bane of landfill operators due to their bulky size and metal springs that can damage landfill equipment. Difficult to compact, they take up valuable space in landfills despite containing 85 percent recyclable materials.
 
For decades, St. Vinnie’s has transformed landfilled and discarded materials into reuse and recycling programs—from retail thrift to Styrofoam recycling—that fund services and create employment opportunities for our most vulnerable community members. We knew that model could be applied to take mattresses filling the waste stream and turn them into an economic engine and community asset.
 
Through trial-and-error, SVdP developed a process to deconstruct mattresses by hand, separating their components—metal springs, foam padding, wood, and more—to sell on the secondary market as commodities that are then recycled into new products. After developing a workable recycling technique, the nation’s first commercially viable mattress recycling facility was born in Oakland, Calif., in 2000 as SVdP subsidiary DR3 (Divert, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle).
 
Since then, SVdP and Lane County’s joint efforts brought mattress recycling to our area, and SVdP scaled mattress recycling operations to three facilities across Oregon and California. Together, they recycled 400,000 mattresses last year alone.
 
This year marks a return to our innovative roots thanks to the implementation of the new mattress stewardship program in Oregon, which will leverage fees charged with purchase of a new mattress to fund mattress recycling across the state. We expect a substantial increase in our annual recycling numbers now that the program is in full swing and have moved into a larger facility to meet increased demand for our services.
 
Our Lane County mattress recycling facility, located at 1770 Prairie Rd., in Eugene, is already accepting up to 10 mattresses per household for recycling, free of charge. Community members are also able to drop their mattresses at the Glenwood Waste Transfer Station, a longstanding partner of SVdP.
 
Through our partnership with Waste Wise Lane County, St. Vincent de Paul is ready to divert hundreds of thousands of mattresses annually, while bringing our community meaningful work opportunities and contributing critical funding for programs serving our neighbors in need.


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