The New Hampshire Solid Waste Working Group (SWWG) held its most recent meeting on Friday, March 28th. Two presenters joined the meeting to speak about mattress recycling opportunities in NH: Trevor Mance, Senior Business Development Manager for Casella Waste Systems and Rodney Clara, VP of Sales & Business Development for Tough Stuff Recycling.
Mattress recycling is of interest to the committee because currently, most mattresses in NH are thrown away rather than recycled at end of life. They are difficult to manage, hard to transport, and take up valuable space in landfills - in addition to causing operational problems in both landfills and waste-to-energy facilities.
Casella accepts mattresses for recycling at all it's NH transfer stations. The mattresses are taken to CT for recycling, and Trevor shared a video of the mattress recycling process.
Tough Stuff recycles mattresses at a Massachusetts facility. Rodney emphasized that 40% of mattresses received for recycling by Tough Stuff could be refurbished and reused instead of recycled. He encouraged NH to consider including refurbishment as an option if the state ever considers passing an extended producer responsibility (EPR) law to support more mattress recycling.
At the SWWG's April meeting, the main focus will be a presentation of the results from NH's first Waste Characterization Study. Members of the Waste Management Council will also be invited to learn about the results of this study, which will influence future discussions at the SWWG on ways NH could improve reuse, recycling, and composting in NH.
The April meeting will be held at the DES offices in Concord from 9:30-11:30am and will also be streamed online. Operators that attend this meeting will be able to receive DES certification credits.
