Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Who knew what you could you do with a MATTRESS?!

Turns out, mattresses are a perfect recyclable item: they are large, easily identifiable items that landfills don't particularly like as they are difficult to compress and they damage equipment such as tractors and backhoes. To dispose of them, they often require special delivery to landfills where even still they actually "float" to the surface, even when covered with dirt. If recycling was an option, people's disposal behavior would barely need to change. The problem? To date, there are few uses for mattress components - creating little market justification for the expense of the recycling process.

Until now.

In September, RNSI partnered with Architecture for Humanity to release the Discarded Dreams mattress recycling design competition. The competition challenged designers to re-envision a world where used mattresses and box springs are turned into new, useful, and commercially viable products that RNSI could test in a new mattress deconstruction facility that we are partnering with Goodwill Silicon Valley to launch in San Jose.

See the results this Thursday, January 22 from 6 - 9 p.m.
We are hosting a reception, with sponsorship from Keetsa and the International Sleep Products Association, to take place this Thursday at the Keetsa Mattress Company (271 9th Street in San Francisco, CA). The design reception will showcase the winning entries as well as over 20 entries from around the world.

This event is open to the public.