Mattresses take up valuable and expensive space in landfill. With options and availability for landfills running out quickly, turning old mattresses into recycled products like metal and timber is a clever way to reduce the waste and recover marketable materials. Mattress recycling offers benefits by diverting these resources for re-use – something waste management company Wanless and its Sydney Recycling Park are achieving every day.
With the motto of ‘Creating a better environment’, Sydney Recycling Park is a recycling facility where waste materials are recovered and processed for re-use. This includes the efficient, cost-effective recovery of materials, like discarded mattresses, for reintegration into the circular economy.
“As a fully integrated waste management company, Wanless helps businesses operate more sustainably,” said Stefan Car, yard manager for 4G Metals, which operates at Sydney Recycling Park in Kemps Creek.
“With our recycling rate of over 80 per cent, we support our clients in transforming their waste strategies and reaching their own sustainability goals.
“At Sydney Recycling Park, we process in excess of 350,000 tonnes of waste annually – including timber, e-waste, cardboard, metals, mattresses, construction and demolition materials.
“With these diverse recycling solutions, we’re on track to exceed our goal of diverting 90 per cent of incoming waste material from landfill.”
Australian mattresses are made up of multiple materials, much of which can be recycled into new products at the end of their life. Instead of burying these resources in landfill, mattresses can be deconstructed to maximise material recovery such as:
- Saleable clean steel – ferrous and non-ferrous metals, which are processed at Sydney Recycling Park, then sent to local manufacturers where the raw materials are manufactured into new steel products.
- All recyclable timber is sorted and chipped onsite and transferred to a local processor for recycling into new timber products.
For example, producing new metals like aluminium from recycled content is up to 95 per cent more energy-efficient than using raw materials, and therefore can go on to help reduce both energy use and the reliance on virgin, non-renewable resources.
Wanless’ Sydney Recycling Park at Kemps Creek has procured the Eggersmann Z60 slow-speed universal shredder from SKALA Environmental, which is currently shredding around 100 mattresses per hour, with an end-goal of diverting over 250,000 mattresses from landfill by end of 2025.
This single-shaft slow-speed shredder with hardened Marathon rotator is a hard-wearing and durable ‘hands-on’ machine, complete with screen baskets to enable single pass shredding for the finished product size.
What made this machine the perfect choice for Wanless’ mattress recycling solution are features such as:
- The rotor with spiral shaped, exchangeable tools tears the material through a counter comb, which is adjustable.
- Thirty interchangeable shredding teeth in three rows distributed over the shredding rotor surface.
- Eco-friendly with the latest motor technology and lowest emissions.
- Six-cylinder Diesel engine Cummins X15, generous cooling system with reversible fan.
- IFM 7-inch touch-control panel and remote control with screen plus remote telematics and diagnostics.
“Wanless has partnered with SKALA on several successful projects at Sydney Recycling Park, including previous equipment installations,” said Car.
Read more: Sometimes less is more with SKALA
“We’ve built a strong relationship with their team and value their reliable aftersales support – so they were a natural choice when we needed a new shredding solution. The Eggersmann shredder has performed exceptionally well and continues to operate reliably after thousands of hours in a particularly demanding environment.”
The partnership between Wanless and SKALA demonstrates how choosing the right equipment and having a shared purpose can help drive a circular economy. Recycled materials can be effectively reintroduced into the supply chain, allowing businesses to collaborate across diverse waste streams and create a marketplace for material exchange.
The Z60 shredder plays a critical role in this process by efficiently handling primary waste feedstocks and producing high-quality outputs for downstream use, such as scrap metal for steel manufacturers and timber processed into new products.
These relationships enable Wanless to unlock greater value from waste streams, as well as supporting its goal of achieving 90 per cent resource recovery.