Canadians discard six million mattresses each year, says Terry Deakin, CEO of INEO Employment Services. In the Alberni Valley, a social enterprise called Recycle Matters has diverted 32,000 of those mattresses from landfills on Vancouver Island. And they are poised to do even more.
Mattresses are historically difficult to dispose of, are not easily recycled and are often illegally dumped.
“Up until recently there wasn’t much recycling done with mattresses anywhere in Canada,” Deakin said. Not until INEO staff members started brainstorming a solution to a challenge they had long recognized with regional employment programs.
The organization has spent the past 25 years working with people who have multiple barriers to employment. “People who experience multiple barriers to employment continue to be under-represented in our labour market, regardless of how many job opportunities that we have out there right now,” Deakin said. “They are also the most under-served in our employment programs.”
“INEO” is Latin for “new beginnings,” she added, “and we have always seen problems as new opportunities as new beginnings. “That’s just the way we roll. We continually strive to merge social, economic and environmental challenges to create successful solutions.”
A few years ago INEO recognized that despite the various skills programs that they offer, participants were having difficulty transitioning from classroom to actual employment.”They can learn in a classroom but carrying it through to a job is sometimes really challenging,” Deakin said. “Employers still don’t want to hire if you don’t have experience or skills that you’ve learned on the job.
“So we decided that we needed to have a place where people could learn those skills. We also recognized that there was nowhere on the Island where people could recycle mattresses. So we put two and two together.” Recycle Matters was the result: the centre opened three years ago on Harbour Road, on Port Alberni Port Authority property. Participants in one of INEO’s employment programs spend the first part of their time in the classroom, then they transition to Recycle Matters to gain on-the-job experience—from hands-on skills to “soft” skills like teamwork or communication.
With cooperation from the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District and some grant money they were able to run a pilot project. “We are always looking to support independent local initiatives that support the regional waste diversion targets,” said Deb Haggard, vice-chair of the ACRD board.
“Recycle Matters not only has created a local solution for recycling a difficult and abundant waste stream but is creating jobs in our community.”
Three years after Recycle Matters opened, they have kept more than 32,000 mattresses out of the landfill—including more than 11,000 out of the local landfill. That’s something operations supervisor Brent Martin appreciates about the program. Martin has been working with Recycle Matters for four years.
“I find it really nice to keep all this stuff out of the landfill,” he said. Martin conducted tours of the facility during an open house on May 26, taking visitors through the process of mattress recycling step by step. Mattresses are cut open and disassembled—very little goes into the landfill, he explained.
Foam pieces are compressed and strapped in bundles that weigh approximately 500 pounds. A company in the Fraser Valley sends a truck to Vancouver Island to pick up the bundles for repurposing—54 bundles per 18-wheel semi-truck.
A forklift with a specially-built attachment strips the metal pieces off a mattress or box-spring frame in one swoop, and the metal is collected to be recycled.
“The foam gets re-purposed and so does the textile,” Martin said. “The metal goes to our local foundry, and all the wood goes to our wood project called Rustic Woodworks.”
The woodworking is an off-shoot operating in a small commercial space near the Encorp Return-It Depot on Fourth Avenue. Participants build outdoor furniture such as benches, stools, planter boxes and patio tables using the wood stripped from box-spring mattresses.
Recycle Matters is the only mattress recycling facility on Vancouver Island. It has established relationships with Merit Furniture in Port Alberni to recycle old mattresses they collect when customers order new ones. They also pick up from Parksville, Nanaimo and Tofino, where they have an agreement with at least one resort to pick up mattresses when they are replaced. The organization will also be starting pickup in Comox this year.
Individuals are also able to drop off their mattresses for a fee, either at Recycle Matters or at the landfill on McCoy Lake Road.
The small staff at Recycle Matters process 800 mattresses per month, with a goal of achieving 1,000 per month this year. However, they are running out of space. Deakin said she is looking for a larger place.
“I would like to relocate this facility to another space where we could also relocate our woodwork shop, so it’s all in one space,” she said.
The challenge is ensuring wherever the facility ends up is connected via transit. One of the big barriers their trainees have with Recycle Matters is getting to the facility on Harbour Road, she added.
Deakin is also looking ahead to expand the services Recycle Matters provides, which would give more employment opportunities to participants. She has talked to a company from Alberta, called Young Farts RV Parts that recycles old recreational vehicles. They are looking for franchisees, and Deakin thinks it would be a good fit.
“Why reinvent the wheel?”
susie.quinn@albernivalleynews.com
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