Mattresses are starting to pile up at the Clay County Resource Recovery Center, but the growing pile is not en route to the landfill. When taken to a landfill, mattresses are hard on equipment and do not compact like most trash, said Corey Bang, Clay County solid waste manager. 鈥淵ou can drive over a mattress with the compactor 100 times, and it鈥檚 just going to spring right back,鈥� Bang said.
Instead, Clay County Solid Waste staff dreamed up a plan to keep mattresses from ending up in the landfill 鈥� haul them to neighboring Becker County, which has a mattress recycling program. To make that dream a reality, the county recently purchased an enclosed semi-trailer to haul mattresses to Becker County for $6,500. Bang said the county anticipates taking a truckload of mattresses to Becker County each month.
From July 1 to July 23, the Resource Recovery Center in Moorhead received 125 mattresses, Bang said. In the same time frame, 42 mattresses were brought to the landfill. Bang estimates the county takes in around 1,000 mattresses each year.