As you can see from the stories and testimonials below, people really seem to like us and what we do. Your old mattresses, on the other hand, don’t like us very much — hey, you can’t please everyone.
Our Blog
Connecting Communities Youth Summit
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On the weekend of August 19-21, Translink, BC Transit, and the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) held the Connecting Communities Youth Summit at the University of British Columbia. Thanks to the organizations, youths from across BC learned about and discussed topics regarding transportation and sustainability. These topics involved the ambitious Regional Growth Strategy adopted by the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). The Regional Growth Strategy is a plan to establish Vancouver as a sustainable and thriving community, while effectively meeting the demands of a growing population. Other topics at the youth summit discussed in more detail included urban planning, cycling, and the development of Vancouver’s transit hubs.
Considering the Uncalculated Costs of Green Projects
While criticisms of the green investments, such as improving bike lanes, may increase in the future, it is important to consider all the uncalculated costs involved in the merit of such projects. Potential improvements in the health and the environment of a city are not as easy to financially calculate as the cost of maintaining a bike lane. Though benefits can simply be enshrouded by the phrases “green” or “good for the environment,” they are still very concrete and in the end can reduce health care and other costs.
Since city air is not a resource owned by any one entity in particular, no one can easily charge a price for polluting the air and diminishing it as a resource. By contrast, in the case of gold, if the demand was to rise and supply diminish, the price would go up, because people hold traditional property rights over gold, and are able to understand the value of their property in the face of supply and demand. It therefore seems unfair to measure environment-friendly projects solely by their price tag: consumers have been getting a relatively free ride in terms of their consumption of unowned resources, such as the air everyone breathes. These factors should be considered when deciding whether or not to invest in green projects like bike lanes.
Mattress recycling itself is such an investment. Without legislation, mattresses could legally be thrown into any ravine or on the side of any street. Throwing mattresses into landfills, on the other hand, impacts the limited supply of land for dumping, stifles the decomposition process in dumps, and can harm public health. Consequently, recycling a mattress is not just an act of reusing material; recycling also potentially reduces the impact of landfills on a community’s well-being—an impact that is not necessarily measured in the immediate price alone. Though such costs and benefits may often be uncalculated, they certainly still exist.
Free Beds at W.R.A.G.S.
WRAGS
WRAGS stands for Western Regional Advocacy Group Society and they are a fantastic organization that exclusively deals with used beds. They receive old mattresses from large retailers and their staff sort each unit into different classifications and re-use/donate them. The Mattressrecycling.ca Team has toured their facility and it is an impressive setup with an excellent group of people working on the floor and behind the scenes.
At WRAGS, if you are in need, you can pickup their “#2″ used beds for free. See their website for details on how they classify their used beds into #1, #2 or #3. Their Free Bed Warehouse is open every day from NOON to 4PM. Spread the word to those in need!
Old Batteries, Old Cell Phones – Don’t Trash Them!
Remember to bring your old batteries and cell phones to us for (free) recycling next time you’re in the South Burnaby area. We have a handy Call2Recycle box in our Mattressrecycling.ca Depot. Call2Recycle is a BC Provincial Program that makes it easy for the residents of our beautiful province to recycle batteries and cell phones safely.
Bring them down, bring your friends!
A Good Thing
Reducing your carbon footprint
Germany’s recent decision to replace their nuclear power with sustainable energy in the near future is a good reminder of our own need to do what we can to reduce our energy consumption for the sake of the environment. While recycling mattresses helps eliminate waste from landfills, it still has a carbon footprint: energy is needed for transportation of materials and general warehouse operations. Even though mattressrecycling.ca’s warehouse is powered with bullfrog power, which is 100% renewable, more can still be done.
As mentioned in a previous post, in the future mattressrecycling.ca intends to use electric powered transportation for pickups. When this happens, pickups will be a much more sustainable activity. However, many customers bring their mattresses to us themselves to save money. For drop offs, organizing a ‘mattress carpool,’ where many mattresses in need of recycling are brought with one trip can help reduce carbon footprints and transport costs! Contacting landlords or others who may have mattresses lying around might just end up being beneficial for all. Give it a try!
COIR in the Garden
We pull this material from old bed units and it makes for good weed-stop blankets. Pick up this material for free from Mattressrecycling.ca any time during our operating hours. It is very strong and does a good job at keeping those invasive species and weeds down in the garden. Try covering it with mulch or rock after laying it down, it will make it look better.
COIR
To the Garden!
Or do this with it.
Mattressrecycling.ca Company BBQ
We had our first company barbecue on July 4, 2011. Smokies and Bratwurst from Black Forest Meats in North Van and the tons of delicious goodies from Bosa Foods. Fun, fun, fun in the sun!
ILIA
Sasha's Creation
Sasha Plavsic, Zac Plavsic’s Sister (Co-owner of Mattressrecycling.ca), has released her much anticipated line of organic lipstick beautifully named ILIA.
“ILIA Pure Lip Care was founded by the inspiration to create a connection between organic beauty and contemporary fashion.”
Sasha has put an incredible amount of time, research and love into creating this product from the ground up. From what I understand, this lipstick is awesome and you should buy some!
Recycling Council of BC Success
Mattressrecycling.ca was at the 2011 RCBC Conference in Whistler and it was a great success! The twenty minute speech I made was well received and I enjoyed answering all the questions related to mattress recycling. It was also nice to put faces to names and meet so many industry professionals. The dialogues were very interesting – these events are excellent for driving innovation and unity within the industry. Thanks RCBC for the invitation!
Call RCBC’s Recycling Hotline if you have any questions about where to recycle things: 604-RECYCLE
Nice Letter
Thanks Green Coast
Green Coast Rubbish posted a great write-up on us at this link! Thanks for taking the time to come in and learn about what we do and for sharing it with everybody.
Together, we will keep our coasts green!