In a “love is inventive unto infinity” story that Vincent would enjoy, Green TV’s short segment called “Once Upon a Mattress†documents the St. Vincent dePaul Society’s (Lane County, Oregon), mattress recycling plant. “We really are the only commercially viable mattress recycler in the worldâ€
The director of the local SVDP operation “ likes to find markets for products that other people don’t handle.â€
Read more from the website. Perhaps other SVDP operation operate with the same spirit. Leave a comment and let us know.
From the website:
In the segment, Sutton said he and McDonald find a mattress on the streets of Oakland as a demonstration. They take it to a thrift store only to be told it’s unwanted. They try a waste transfer station, then finally take it to the St. Vinnie operation and have it made into a dog bed.
The Oakland mattress recycling operation started in 1999, and the one here on Prairie Road in 2003. The nonprofit society had been recycling mattresses for years, but had never disassembled and rebuilt them for sale. Employees at both plants tear apart the mattresses and box springs and sort the fabric, foam, wood and metal pieces into separate piles that are delivered to manufacturers. Carpet companies buy the foam, and companies that make moving pads buy the padding, McDonald said. “About 80 percent of the components we can find a market for,†he said.
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Tags: Anti-poverty strategies, social entrepreneurship, Society of St. Vincent de Paul
A correction from Charley Harvey: The mattress recycling operation is NOT run by the local Oakland, CA SVDP as indicated. It is instead run by SVDP of Lane County Oregon under the name DR3 as to not confuse the two seperate SVDP operations. As such, the director quoted is NOT the local director, but the director of SVDP Lane County Oregon. (This correction has been made in the above text. Apologies for the error and thank you for drawing attention to the error.)