Living in the city I see discarded mattresses out on the curb every week. They are difficult to recycle, create a large amount of waste, and no one wants to use someone else’s old mattress. Frank Willems has created funky furniture by bending and folding mattress into usable forms.
The project was born after a trip to the dump, in the designers own words:
At a visit to a waste processing facility I learned almost all types of waste appeared to have a destination, except mattresses. They cause trouble because they get stuck between the shredders…For this reason, I started to work with old mattresses.
Frank takes the mattress materials and folds them together, straps them down onto old furniture pieces, and sprays the whole object with a “hygienic, water-resistant foam coating, and finished with a pliable, soft paint.” The end result is a strange and intriguing blend of forms, textures, and mass that give new life to very unwanted material.
via Apartment Therapy and Cool Hunting.
These are crazy! Maybe I’ll try this with my old mattress.
I sell mattress in Singapore, we do face a lot of problems with the disposal of old mattress.
It is bulky and some of the branded mattress are really hard to tear apart. I have never in my life though that mattress could be recycled this way.
This is super cool! Well done!!
great post, thanks
job well done..
Very interesting I could not figure out what these pieces were until I realized they were old mattress materials! Very good concept and actually pretty stylish design.
This is a really neat idea!! I’ve never seen anything like it before. You must have a great imagination!!
Very interesting furniture concept.Are they sanitized first? Way to recycle, very cool!
That is a lot of creativity, thank you for sharing, nice images.
simmons beautyrest
I wouldn’t say that no one wants to use old mattresses. On the contrary, I would estimate that we get back 60% of customer’s old mattresses. Nearly all of those are sent to used mattress retailers, then recyclers. So most of what we get back is actually resold.
I would definitely recommend that when you buy a new mattress, DON’T THROW IT AWAY. Arrange for the company to take it back.
It is such a waste. A lot of those used beds are worth $$$ and you’re just adding to the land-fill.
Very unique. Thank you for keeping our planet GREEN.