How mattress recycling works in Australia

This article was contributed by Australian Bedding Stewardship Council.

Inside the Australian Bedding Stewardship Council’s national stewardship scheme

Australia throws away an estimated 1.8 million mattresses every year, making bedding waste one of the country’s more complex and overlooked resource challenges. The Australian Bedding Stewardship Council (ABSC) is working to change how mattresses are managed, all the way from design through to end-of-life recycling or even reuse.

At the core, the ABSC focuses on keeping valuable materials circulating longer while reducing the environmental and landfill impacts associated with old bedding.

A national approach to mattress recycling

The ABSC operates a voluntary, industry-led product stewardship scheme supported by the Government. The initiative brings together manufacturers, importers, retailers, recyclers, councils and industry partners to create coordinated recycling pathways all across Australia.

This collaborative approach matters because mattress recycling is logistically complex and relatively costly, with limited resale value for recovered materials. Industry collaboration helps build the infrastructure needed to make recycling viable at scale.

The aim is simple: divert more bedding from landfill while improving recovery outcomes.

What actually happens when a mattress is recycled?

Once collected through a retailer take-back program, council service or specialist recycler, mattresses are dismantled to recover usable materials. Typically, this includes steel springs, foam, timber and textiles.

Recycling rates continue to improve. Around 60% of end-of-life mattresses are now collected for recycling programs!

This reality highlights why the ABSC focuses not just on recycling volumes but also on improving product design and recovery technology.

Supporting recyclers and building industry guidelines

The ABSC works closely with approved recyclers that meet environmental and operational criteria for safe collection, storage and recovery of mattress materials.

These partnerships help:

• Expand recycling access nationally
• Improve material recovery outcomes
• Support responsible handling guidelines
• Build industry confidence in circular bedding solutions

As the recycler network grows, so does the potential to divert more bedding waste from landfill. To ensure old mattresses make it to recyclers, the ABSC proactively engages our members to establish reliable, responsible take-back services. When purchasing a new mattress, be sure to ask your retailer about take-back options.

Moving beyond recycling toward circular design

While recycling is a key focus, we’re also encouraging product design changes that make mattresses easier to dismantle, repair and recover at end of life. The ABSC is working across the supply chain to improve recyclability at the design stage, increase use of recycled materials in original products, exploring reuse pathways and working to build consumer awareness about responsible disposal of their own mattresses.

Circularity is not just about waste management, it is about designing bedding systems that minimise waste from the outset and the ABSC is working to make this a reality in Australia.