The University’s waste, procurement & halls management teams have worked together to improve the way we deal with mattresses coming out of our residences. In the past these went to landfill. This year we arranged for the company who deliver new mattresses to take the old mattresses back for recycling in what otherwise would have been empty lorries.
Since starting the new scheme in the summer, 217 mattresses have been sent for recycling, saving £555 in landfill costs and diverting about 5.4 tonnes of waste from landfill. In addition, by using the transport company that delivered the new mattress to back haul the obsolete mattress, we avoided visits to our site by three skip lorries, thereby reducing carbon emissions.
You can find out more about how we are trying to Reduce-Reuse-Recycle by going to: http://southampton.likn.co/susdev/procurement_and_waste/
In particular, read the case study on WARP-it, which allows staff to redistribute unwanted and underused assets (such as office furniture) within the University: http://southampton.likn.co/susdev/procurement_and_waste/warpit.html