How To Get Rid of a Mattress — For Real

If you’re looking to get rid of your mattress (like I was not too long ago), you’ve probably noticed how rife the internet is with articles on how to remove your mattress.

While some content delivers, at their best, most of these articles make uninformed recommendations or suggest downright silly things, like turning your mattress parts into Christmas ornaments. At their worst, they’re agenda-driven or may take you on a wild goose chase that will waste your time and possibly your money.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this content is they offer the same set of recommendations to everyone when the fact of the matter is: getting rid of a mattress is a regional matter. Every town, county, and state has its own mattress disposal quirks.

So let me save you some trouble and let you know what your options actually are.

---

Toss or Donate?

Take a moment to be honest with yourself about the condition of your mattress. This can help save you and others quite a bit of trouble. Is your mattress totally done for, or is it acceptable for donating or selling? FYI: If it’s a little dirty, that’s okay! You’re going to want to clean it anyway before giving it away (so make sure to check out the mattress cleaning tips in the next section).  

Here are some signs that you should dump your mattress in the garbage rather than dump it on a charity to dispose of themselves:

• The structure has been compromised: broken coils, sagging, indentations
• Tears, holes, gashes
• Obvious stains
• Stubborn odors

How To Clean a Mattress

If your mattress gets the pass and you’ve decided to give it away, be sure to follow these steps to clean and deodorize it:

1. Vacuum the mattress using your vacuum’s upholstery attachment. Don’t forget to get into the crevices and seams!
2. Spot-clean the mattress using an enzyme cleaner for biological stains like urine and sweat. Make sure not to soak your mattress — spray the cleaner onto a cloth and blot at the stain, then with another cloth wet with cold water, continue to blot. You can also create a DIY solution. Personally, I like to mix laundry detergent with vinegar and water (two parts cold water to one part white vinegar and a few tablespoons of laundry detergent)
3. If possible, lay your mattress in the sun to kill mold and bacteria
4. Sprinkle your mattress with baking soda to soak up any odors
5. Vacuum the baking soda off.
6. Flip the mattress and repeat steps 1–5.

How To Get Rid of a Mattress: Your Options

Besides selling it, you have six options to get rid of a mattress:

Toss it

If your mattress is in bad shape, you’ll want to toss it. But hey, not so fast — before you go dumping your mattress at the curb or in your apartment complex’s dumpster, your waste management company likely has a specific protocol for this, like wrapping it in a plastic mattress bag or leaving it out on a certain day for collection. Reach out to your own local waste department for their specific policy and don’t be surprised if you have to pay a special fee. The same advice goes for dropping it off at the dump.

Donate it 

A lot of articles will tell you to simply go to DonationTown.org to donate your mattress. While this website seems to be a useful resource for finding donation centers near you, I have my doubts as to whether or not anyone has actually used it to successfully get rid of a mattress. I tried it for my own area as well as a few other cities, and couldn’t for the life of me find a donation center that accepted mattresses. 

 

Your new mattress company may haul away your old one. In fact, if you live in California, which now requires by law that mattress companies remove consumers’ old mattresses free of charge, you can definitely rely on this option.

 

While donation centers in my city were listed, they didn’t accept mattresses according to their websites. So, a good old-fashioned Google search for “donation centers near me” could probably work just as well. You can also check out a list of donation centers for ideas on where to start. Contact each listing until you find one that actually accepts mattresses, and if you’re truly lucky, one that even offers mattress pickup.

Reach out

Don’t forget about your own network! Text your friends and family to see if they’re in need of a mattress. Post on Facebook that you have a mattress available for free for anyone who picks it up. You could also offer it for sale for $0 on Facebook Marketplace.

Recycle it

In some cases, mattresses can be recycled. When they are, their parts can be reused in fabric, upholstery, carpets, auto parts, and more. The following directories are typically recommended for finding centers that recycle mattresses:

• Earth 911 seems to be useful. I didn’t have any luck finding recycling centers near me in Tampa Bay, but I tried random ZIP codes for cities in other states and the listings seemed promising
• Bye-Bye Mattress is a great resource, but only if you live in CA, CT & RI (a detail bloggers often leave out)

Otherwise, you can search for “recycling centers near me”. You can also check for recycling events in your local area. You’ll probably find a few coming up in your county. I’ve seen recycling events for electronic equipment and chemical collection in my county, but none yet for mattresses. However, you may have better luck in your neck of the woods.

Repurpose it

This idea is invented and floated around by content creators pretty often. Who’s actually going to break down their mattress and reuse the parts, though? Still, in my due diligence, I decided to leave this on the list in case any hardcore DIYers happen to chance upon this article. 

Here are some ideas for repurposing your old mattress that you can find around the interwebs:

• Use the filler for cushions, stuffed animals, bed pillows, and bean bags
• Convert it into a composting system
• Turn it into a rug
• Use it for jungle gym padding
• Build a daybed porch chair
• Create DIY decor such as candle and photo holders

Get a new mattress

Getting a new mattress? Your new mattress company may haul away your old one. In fact, if you live in California, which now requires by law that mattress companies remove consumers’ old mattresses free of charge, you can definitely rely on this option. But I live in Florida and the company I bought my mattress from offered this convenience for free as part of its white glove service.

 

“…getting rid of a mattress is a regional matter. Every town, county, and state has its own mattress disposal quirks.”

 

For those of us who don’t live in California, here are some online mattress companies and brick-and-mortar stores that offer mattress removal regardless of what state you live in — although not always for free:

• Caspar offers mattress disposal options in select In-Home Delivery & Setup markets for $199.
• Nectar doesn’t appear to offer any service.
• Helix no longer offers mattress removal since COVID-19 due to safety concerns. 
• Saatva includes free mattress removal as part of its service.
• Ikea will remove your old mattress for free when they deliver your new one as part of their Removal & Recycling Service and they promise to dispose of it “in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.”
• The Mattress Firm offers removal of your old mattress set as part of their Gold Service for $79.99–$119.99 for both online and in-store purchases

But be warned: If you opt to buy a mattress online and you decide to take advantage of the company’s generous return window, it’s likely that your practically new but gently used mattress will get hauled away to the landfill.

Hire a junk removal service

Personally, I hate to see anyone spend money they don’t have to, which is why I left this last on the list. However, there’s a reason why these companies exist. It’s more convenient having people pick up your junk than driving down to the dump yourself, especially if your vehicle is short on space. Junk removal services generally charge around $100 to $130 to haul a mattress away.

In addition to having to pay to haul your junk away, I also like this option the least because it’s always unfortunate to see your stuff end up in a landfill. Fortunately, junk removal companies are increasingly becoming sensitive to the environmental impact of waste, so your junk hauling service may offer recycling for an additional fee if it’s available for your area.

---

Whichever option you choose, good luck with getting rid of your mattress! If you can manage to do it for free without driving anywhere, good for you. If not, at least you’ll know you got rid of it responsibly.

---

Illustrations by Drew Shannon