Mattresses sit at the Kennedale Eco Station before they are taken to the vendor for recycling.

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The numbers have been released on how many mattresses the City of Edmonton recycled in its first full year of its mattress recycling program.

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READ MORE: City of Edmonton looks to recycle mattresses

Previously, the city left mattresses to sit in the landfill. In the fall of 2016, it started the search for a vendor to help it recycle the household item.

The city awarded a three-year contract to Redemptive Developments, and the mattress recycling program officially started in January 2017.

Trent Tompkins, the director of the city’s waste collection services, said approximately 40,000 mattresses were recycled in all of 2017 through the city’s four eco stations as well as the Edmonton Waste Management Centre (EWMC).

“It’s an opportunity to avoid waste from [the] landfill. It’s helping our efficiencies as well,” Tompkins said.

“Part of the problem with mattresses – they take up a lot of space and they create air pockets in the transportation, in the trailers when they haul material. Taking that material out increases our efficiencies in moving material as well as providing material for reuse in terms of the wood or the steel that’s in there, the fabric.”

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In 2016, a city spokesperson told Global News it was unclear whether the city would receive a share of the profits after the recycled products from the mattress are sold.

Tompkins said the city is not, though it may be possible in the future.

He said the city currently pays $15 per mattress for the vendor to recycle it, pegging the total cost per year at more than half a million dollars. In comparison, Tompkins said the cost to send the mattresses straight to the landfill would be closer to $200,000.

“We certainly are paying a little bit more but we’re getting a better outcome from it,” he said.

Tompkins said he expects more mattresses to be recycled in 2018 than the previous year since the program was rolled out at the eco stations over the course of 2017; it is now up and running at all four eco stations and the EWMC.

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