SHREWSBURY – Starting Nov. 1, Shrewsbury residents will no longer be able to have their mattresses collected through curbside collection.
Town Manager Kevin Mizikar addressed this during a Shrewsbury Board of Selectmen meeting on June 14, noting that the state had issued a broad mattress disposal ban.
All mattresses will need to be fully recycled, he said, rather than simply being thrown away. This effectively ends a town program that helped dispose of old mattresses.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) website on waste disposal bans, DEP issued its final 2030 Solid Waste Master Plan in October of last year.
Mattresses were added to the waste disposal bans as part of its objectives to reduce disposal statewide by 30% over the next decade. The ban also impacts textiles.
This mattress and textile ban goes into effect at the beginning of November of this year.
According to a FAQ, the ban on mattresses doesn’t include items like mattress pads, mattress toppers, sleeping bags, pillows and mattresses in futons and sofa beds.
“We do know that it is one of the most popular bulky waste items that gets placed at the curb,” Mizikar said of this ban’s local impacts on mattress collection.
He estimated that there were nearly 700 mattresses collected in Shrewsbury over the past year.
Mizikar said Shrewsbury is exploring other opportunities to provide mattress disposal services to residents.
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