Mattress Recycling in Australia

Every year Australians discard around 1.6 to 1.8 million mattresses, and the vast majority end up in landfill. A single mattress can take up to 120 years to break down, taking up valuable landfill space and leaching chemicals and steel into the environment. The good news is that up to 90% of a mattress — the steel springs, foam, latex, coconut fibre, timber and fabric — can be recovered and recycled into new products, from carpet underlay and mulch to steel reinforcing and animal bedding.

Mattress recycling works by deconstructing each mattress into its component materials. Steel springs are extracted and sent to metal recyclers, foam is shredded for carpet underlay, timber frames become mulch or fuel, and textiles are processed for industrial use. Specialist facilities across Australia — including Soft Landing in Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth, and Bounce Back in South Australia — accept mattresses for proper dismantling rather than dumping.

For households, the challenge has always been logistics: mattresses are bulky, awkward to transport, and most kerbside collections won't take them. That's where Cobber comes in. We connect you with a local driver who collects your mattress directly from your home and delivers it to a recycling partner — or, where no facility is nearby, arranges responsible local removal and disposal. You book in under two minutes, get a clear price upfront, and your mattress stays out of landfill.

Recycling your mattress through Cobber supports local drivers, reduces landfill, and contributes to a circular economy where materials are reused rather than wasted. It's a small choice with a meaningful impact — one mattress at a time, kept in circulation and out of the kerbside.