I Give Up!!! (Recycling)

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Well, I am stuck at home today, in bed with the flu. Tried to cheer myself up by looking at recycling sites on the internet. Instead, I am thoroughly depressed. Read the following article and you'll understand why. You see, I thought I was the Queen of Recycling. Ask any of my friends (especially the ones who don't recyle- they think I am over the top!). Now I realize that in fact, I am nothing but a rank amatuer. And worse, I don't even have any inclination to recycle old mattresses :>(

Radical Recycling ! 'To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves. However small may be the world we live in, if we can transform ourselves, bring about a radically different point of view in our daily existence,then perhaps we shall affect the world at large.......' Krishnamurti

In 1994, I couldn't resist entering JACKIE FRENCH'S Great Recycling Competition, but I felt like a stunned mullet when I got a note saying I had won, & that my letter would appear in EARTH GARDEN MAGAZINE in 1995! I have since realised that less eccentric souls miss many opportunities of creative re-use of everyday rubbish. Re-cycling is actually a euphemism. Re-use is what we must aim for, so as to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill, & the mountains of unused 'recyclables' which are currently uneconomic to re-process. Some obvious resources for gardeners are lawn-clippings & fallen leaves. Since I have no lawn, I collect clippings which have been dumped in back lanes, or rake them up from the local park when the Council's mower has been through. The surrounding streets are lined with deciduous trees, so in autumn I collect leaves to supplement those from my garden for the next twelve months.(Back to Street Gardening))

Anyway, here is the meat of my prize-winning letter.

'My current obsession is recycling mattresses. I recycle lots of other things (in fact the reason for the spelling errors is that my typewriter is recycled!) Last week I made a bike trailer from a golf buggy I bought at a jumble sale for $2. And I do interesting things with old phone directories, like using them instead of bricks to make bookcases - tie a stack of them into parcels with discarded pantihose, then cover attractively with whatever you have on hand - fabric, coloured or plain paper etc. They also make good booster seats for small fry. At the table use them just as they are - tear off the pages as they get covered in spilled food; in the car they are better than foam cushions when firmly covered with fabric, while covered in plastic they are ideal to stand on to reach washbasin or toilet bowl, & don't slide or tip like plastic turtles!

I don't have any trouble getting my friends & acquaintances to use ideas like this. Yet when it comes to inner-spring mattresses they go all shy! Mattresses are a mine of resources. It takes me about 2 hours to completely dismantle one. All the products are so useful a little care is well repaid. I wear a scarf over my mouth & nose, because it's a dusty job, & old clothes, as a matter of course.

First I unpick the stitching around the edge of the mattress. (Every step is repeated, as mattresses have two sides!). Often the thread itself is in good enough condition to re-use, but in any case, the reward for patience is several metres of strong attractive braid, and sometimes some jute piping cord as well. I then remove any buttons or tabs, & the attached tape or thread. The buttons are often attractive, but always useful. (One really old mattress had leather circles just the right size for making hose washers.)

The next job is to peel off the fabric. If it has small holes in it where the buttons were you can still make items such as cushion covers & pillow-cases from it. But often the result is two large pieces of strong fabric plus the side pieces, big enough to make a skirt, or cover a garden lounge. We have also made garden aprons & childrens overalls from striped covers, & I have a classy pair of harem pants made from a green brocade number. If the fabric is stained, you can still sew it into sacks for collecting & storing mulch

Beneath the fabric is a layer of padding. If it is foam, you can wash it & use for stuffing, but usually you will end up with two thick layers of wool or cotton waste, which can be peeled off in sheets & used as the basis of a no-dig garden or to keep your compost warm. Or pull it apart, & use as a wonderful mulch & slow-release organic fertiliser, or compost it.

Underneath the stuffing you will find layers of coconut fibre. Coconut fibre is the most wonderful weed-suppressing worm-attracting mulch you could wish for, or it can be crumbled into an ecologically sound substitute for peat. (The peat-bogs of the world are dying, & peat is definitely on my list of things NEVER to buy!) Have you checked out the price of coconut fibre & peat substitute in your garden store lately? In every mattress there is a gold-mine! Very occasionally you will find wood wool instead of the coconut. This also has plenty of uses.

Under the coconut firbre there will be a sheet of hessian of variable quality & usefulness. In poor condition it can be used to wrap plants, trap codling moth, clean garden tools, or put in the bottom of plant pots. In good condition it makes excellent shade cloth, bags & garden aprons. There will now almost certainly be a sizeable pile of dirt on the ground, which can be swept up & put straight into the compost. I haven't slept on a mattress since seeing the dirt that came out of the first one I dismantled! And that was one in decent condition!

The toughest part of the process is removing the metal staples that hold the fibre to the springs. I use a large screwdriver, plus pliers & wear heavy gloves. If you really want to use everything, I guess these could be dropped into a jar of dilute sulphuric acid, to make iron sulphate to put on your azaleas, but even I haven't yet gone that far!

Now we finally uncover the core - the inner-spring, which is the reason I started dismembering mattresses in the first place. The foregoing is a bonus!

I attached the springs to a low fence, using wire from coat-hangers & discarded panti-hose to tie them to the fence & to eachother. The result is cat-proof. They can't get through, & don't climb it because it's both painful & unstable.

. I have used mattress springs to make an instant hedge, by driving metal pickets into the ground, & sliding the springs over them, then planting rampant sprawlers - beans, peas, nasturtiums, morning glory or curcubits all work well. You can have a low hedge or a high fence, depending on what you want & how many mattresses you can snaffle.

And they make excellent trellis.

They also work well to deter rabbits & foxes from digging into the chook-pen (Hen-run). Dig a shallow trench the width of a single mattress, then place the springs flat in the trench. Drive your fence posts in the mid-line, so half the spring is outside & half inside the pen. I haven't tried this with wombats, though, & if anyone discovers that the method is also wombat-proof, I'd really like to know!

I'm sure you will think of lots of other uses for the materials in mattresses. I've also taken apart bed-bases. The springs are too far apart to make cat-proof fence, but the hessian is top-quality, the wood makes good bookcases, & the legs can be used for making low tables. Plenty of long wood screws too! Single springs from old chairs can be used to support & protect growing plants - bury 1/3rd in the ground, then plant your seeds or seedling in the centre.

Recycling is great fun! during the depression we called it 'making do', during the war it was 'salvage, & in Girl Guides we called it 'thrift'. The important thing is, there is no such thing as rubbish - only resources!'

When the river floods, wood gets carried downstream & jams against rocks & bridges. Collecting, drying & stacking it is a regular task. As well as keeping the waterway clear, it fuels my pot-belly stove during the winter.

Now for someReally Radical Recycling!



-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), March 11, 2002

Answers

Cheer up & I hope you feel better. You never know, there could be several things you've done that that person hasn't. Maybe all they do is recycle matresses..I'm sure you do much, much more.

-- Wendy A (phillips-anteswe@pendleton.usmc.mil), March 11, 2002.

Why would this depress you? While reading it, I thought of many future projects I would like to tackle. I think you'll feel better when you get over the flu and can focus on your next project. Hang in there :>)

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), March 11, 2002.

That person has to be nuts !!!!!!

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), March 11, 2002.

Au contraire Patty! While the bulk materials type of recycling that commonly done is a good thing, all it does is recover materials rather than recovering products. By recovering products as well as materials you effectively get more "miles per gallon" out of the energy that went into making the product by extending its useful life. I really enjoy the creative aspects of bottomfeeding.

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), March 11, 2002.

Don't give up! Keep at it! If you really try you can (almost) match even an Australian at recycling.

I remember being impressed when I saw this first come out in print. It's not so much that you want to emulate them, as that in seeing what they've done your imagination is freed to make even more things possible. Although there are an awful lot of people who would love to know how to build a fence a wombat couldn't burrow under. I think as a minimum it would take queen sized mattresses laid crosswise rather than along the length of the fence.

Jackie French is sort of a back-to-the earth thinking man's crumpet in Australia (although these days more like an earth mother figure). Both are good. Her husband is an ex-USA citizen, ex NASA power systems engineer. She says in her latest book that when they spent their first morning together (you know what she means) she looked out the window at the sunshine and commented how good it would be for her batteries, and he said "But darling, you should have TOLD me you had a solar power system." That sealed both their fates.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 12, 2002.



Now, not to rain on your recycling parade, just another thought. I have read that putting large amounts of metal in your garden will attract the lightning. That even chains hanging in trees, old metal pieces hung on the barn or fences will make your yard dangerous in a storm. I had a neat mattress spring, though of using it in the garden, but then had Steve take it to the dump. We get some pretty heavy duty lighting up here allready, and don't want to temp it. What do you all think?

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), March 12, 2002.

Think "trash-to-steam plant".

-- Nina (Ingardenwithcat@hotmail.com), March 12, 2002.

I actually drempt of taking apart old mattresses last night. I guess thats what I get for reading this forum before I go to bed. I thought the mattress thing was way cool but I don't seem to have any laying about. I thought I was pretty good at recycling.....

-- Kelly (homearts2002@yahoo.com), March 12, 2002.

Those metal bed springs make a great pasture or pond dragging device.

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), March 12, 2002.

I was actually quite impressed myself, but depressed too because all along I have thought I was pretty good at recycling. I just never would have thought about taking old mattresses apart, lol. In truth, though, I would love to have some of that coconut fiber- my worms love it and it makes great packing material for shipping them.

This woman's story has given me pause to think in a different direction, and try to be more creative.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), March 12, 2002.



I'm sure if you want one, you can probably find a discarded mattress at your local landfill. I'm planning to make visiting the landfill a regular occurance, on my way back out to the property from town as it is always a great place to find pallets, renovation refuse, and other wood products, compostables, as well as really insane pieces of metal. I once recycled a mattress and used the whole spring wire set up as a trellis just as it was.

-- roberto pokachinni (pokachinni@yahoo.com), March 17, 2002.

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