Fabrics from Old Mattress's

Bed bugs and dust mites, what about them? But here's a site that will be a resource for dREXIL; pure waste

Bed bugs and dust mites, what about them? No worry, they just add to the calorie count in waste to energy production The OP may want to also contact this association also.

Don'tknow who gave you an off-topic, but it is not deserved. Neither is a GA !

Nah, may be someone I knew in the past.=) It's fine. I got my 1st GA awhile ago and "hackers" took it, I guess not. Merry Christmas!

A bit late, but thanks very much, and to to you and yours as well... & Godspeed for 2016 to anyone who reads this, and the rest of CR4 (who probably won't)!

Hilton.

nice link,... when you think of it though, what manufacturing process does not have a certain amount of waste.

Reinforcements for recycled mixed plastics, Boss?

Quite a lot of organics in there.

They said mattresses double in weight every 8 years, but no research to verify that.

http://www.livescience.com/33097-does-your-mattress-really-gain-weight-over-time-.html

heavy duty vinyl mattress cover....

No Thanks! I want my mattress to breath! I'd sweat half the night with an impervious cover.

Regarding the other post that talks about mattresses gaining weight: only a couple of years ago I finally replaced a mattress that had been in pretty much continuous use since the late 1940s. If it had doubled its weight every 8 years, I would not have been able to lift it to carry it away! I have no idea how much it weighed when new, but I seriously doubt if it had gained more than 30%, if that.

Well you don't sleep on the plastic cover silly....You have a nice thick mattress pad, that you can wash, in fact you may have two, one to use while the other is in for cleaning....then you just rotate them and occasionally replace as they wear out....

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F655PAO?psc=1

Talk to your local garage - they need cleaning cloths. They could advise what size to tear the fabric into, & you might be able to barter some vehicle service etc for a supply of them.

The balance could be put into the garage supplies market for income - if a size / quality etc can be agreed & maintained. Should be washed - but could be better income than burning.

I believe in similar areas, special, very hard metal blades in a special machine, are used to cut up mixed materials, old car tyres are a perfect example, to very tiny pieces.

These are then sorted by magnets and other systems, to put each type of material in a separate bin for usage or disposal.

I would suggest you go and look at such a company that recycles old car/lorry/truck tyres before deciding further.

Many mattresses today have as good as no metal in them, they are often simply different sorts of foam rubber, with a cloth covering....some even have zips, these types would probably be better sorted by hand.....these might even be "cleanable" and can be then sold on the secondhand market.....

I hope this helps.

Thanks Andy and everyone else who replied. As stated by some of the contributors their are many different types of mattress's now. The vast majority of the ones we get have metal springs that make up about 50% of the weight on average. We did cost a shredding machine but the cost was prohibitive for our type of social enterprise, what we make on the metal,wood and bring charge is being absorbed in the cost to get rid of the fabric in the most environmentally way possible at this time. We do realise that the fabric material must be cleaned before further processing but washing and drying would be very expensive and not feasible. Any further ideas welcome

Forty years ago, as the recycling of mixed municipal wastes was a notion gaining in interest, we were asked to examine the "bulk furnishings component", including mattresses, sofas, etc. Multiple processes were considered, both for processes as a dedicated component for just the furnishings within the entire collected waste stream and for aggregation with other materials of varying degrees of affinity of properties.

What we found was that there were two potential routes: aggregating all combustible materials after a picker line for non-bulk waste into a mass burn in a trommel incinerator line, or adding several processing steps (shredding, metals and other heavy non-combustible solids separation, etc.) to produce a highly beneficiated produce (refuse derived fuel) that could be fed along with pulverized coal into a conventional power boiler. Beyond the use of pickers in a mixed refuse facility, we were not able to identify any direct labor solutions that produced a sufficient economic return for the waste beneficiation.

To date, most direct unskilled labor solutions not directly associated with the waste generators themselves have been for highly selective source separation measures for high value materials, such as electronics. Manually tearing apart mattresses, etc. does not sound like an truly economically viable activity in the long run.

Sometimes you must think outside of the laundromat:

See if you can get a local concrete company to use one of their men and a truck for a 1/2day or so.

If your company is a bona fide charity,it could be a tax deduction for them.

When you get a HUGE pile of fabric,load it into the cement mixer with detergent and bleach and rotate for about an hour.

(Perhaps you could get a local Big Lots or Dollar store to donate the detergent and bleach as a tax write off also.)

When finished washing,dump them down the chute,and let your labor force handle it from there.

Hand wring them out by putting one person on each end and twisting,then doubling

up and twisting some more,the way they did it before automatic washing machines.

Use a clothes line to let solar power dry them.

That's the way they do laundry in some areas of Saudi Arabia and India now.

You should have a lot less trouble getting rid of clean fabrics than the unsanitary ones you now have.

Good luck.

Thank you HiTekRedNek . Our project is located in Ireland we have plenty of rain and using atmospheric drying would be almost impossible. I like your idea of the concrete drum washer.

Just a thought, is anyone still making 'rag' paper?

Thanks for input gerardpaxton. Sorry for the ignorance what is rag paper????.

Here's a link about rag paper. The U.S paper $$ currency uses cotton fibers, I don't remember right off hand the % cotton content it contains, but does last a long time compared to soft wood pulp paper.

At last, a profitable sideline!

100's might be best, & you can use the concrete mixer to make them look a bit used, & also disconsecutivise them!

I think most banknotes use it!

Because it's durable

I never thought any different.

Its a well known usage for reasons of longevity......

I was simply answering his question as to what use such paper is put to.

I was not asking anything of anyone.

Read back!!!

Of course,... Here's a another trivia, the color green was initially used (for the u.s. Dollar) because it was a stable color. From fading and such.

...and possibly poisonous if it was done in the 19th Century or before!! Certainly "Green" and "White" wall papers were made using arsenic and lead.

Arsenic and lead in wallpaper pigments were other health hazards. In 1775 the Swedish chemist Scheele discovered a pigment containing arsenic (copper arsenite), thereafter known as 'Scheele's green'.

By 1800 this was widely used in paints, fabrics and wallpapers. Mrs Beeton warned against 'Brilliant (emerald) green, which contains arsenic, and some kinds of glossy white, which is produced by the use of oxide of lead', both of which had a 'pernicious influence on the health'. Rhoda and Agnes Garrett considered these bright greens to be 'aesthetically as well as physically poisonous'.

Maybe some other "Green" was used for Greenbacks? Anyone know for certain?

Now that would make some sense..... carcinogens and pathogen has very stable properties.

Thanks for explanation Andy. It was good to put the original question out there because this project is managed by the Cork Environmental Form and our ethos is to recycle if at all possible. There are lots of good ideas in the replies for us to work on. Still would appreciate more ideas. We work on the basis that everything is possible if you try hard enough and gather information on the subject in question from wherever possible.

I did,... When your started with 'I think....'

That in itself is an uncertainty.

Not with me, its just a way of being polite. You may not have caught that......not a problem.

No matter how one formulates an answer it seems, someone will always take it the wrong way......

The English language is used in many ways quite differently depending upon which side of the Atlantic you were born on, for example, being one of the most widely spoken languages around.

Even spelling is quite different for many words between the US and the UK....

Which is why I tend to say "English and American" nowadays, as I feel its more accurate.

Possibly not "technically" correct though....

Many people born in the US have ONLY known US spellings and US manners.......so you cannot blame them for not knowing!!

I'll keep that in mind, just explaining my point of view, that's all.

Here in the US, when inspecting fuel tanks, I'd rather a flash light (explosion proof of course) than a "torch", which in the US is a stick with some type of burning material on the end of it!

Now that is a typical US misinterpretation...

In English, it represents both of them, but if you don't know which one is intended in that situation.......problem may be solved!!

Check with San Francisco. They have a program that deals strictly with old mattresses. I saw a tv program on it several years back. http://www.sfrecycling.com/index.php/for-homes/residential-bulky-item-collection