Personal Finance
Why I paid $95 to recycle a mattress — and you might, too
The author paid a company, Renewable Recycling, to pick up and recycle his queen-size mattress in New York City.
Greg Iacurci
I paid $95 to recycle a mattress.
It may sound odd, silly even, to pay so much to dispose of a run-of-the-mill household item.
But the economics of mattress recycling illustrate why it can be difficult — and costly — to be an eco-friendly consumer in the U.S.
Americans discard about 15 million to 20 million mattresses each year, according to the Mattress Recycling Council. That’s an average of about 50,000 per day.
Most end up in a landfill, experts said.
Mattresses are “one of the hardest things to recycle,” said Alicia Marseille, a sustainability and circular economy expert at Arizona State University.
“It’s a massive waste stream,” she said.
‘It’ll probably be there for hundreds of years’
Mattresses at a garbage dump.
Robert Brook | Corbis | Getty Images
My mattress — a queen-sized hand-me-down from family and probably close to two decades old — was in desperate need of replacement. The average mattress has a lifespan of about 14 years, from manufacture to consumer disposal, according to MRC.
But what to do with it?
I live in Brooklyn, where residents can dispose of a mattress for free as part of routine trash pickup.
As someone who meticulously tries to cut waste in everyday life — avoiding single-use plastics, composting food scraps — it was painful to think of mine wasting away in a landfill.
“If you put your mattress in a landfill, it’ll probably be there for hundreds of years, just sitting there,” said Meg Romero, the recycling and litter control superintendent for Charles County, Maryland.
Surely, I can find a new home for it instead, I thought.
Wrong.
After two weeks of unsuccessful dispatches to local homeless shelters, organizations like The Salvation Army and Goodwill, and community forums like Buy Nothing and The Freecycle Network, I’d exhausted my patience for a free-giveaway option.
Individuals who donate a mattress to certain groups may be able to claim a tax deduction for its fair market value on their federal tax return. Taxpayers would need to itemize their deductions to benefit.
Did I neglect to reach out to some interested parties? Probably. Might someone else have different results? Yes. But my personal cost-benefit analysis dictated that it was time to ditch donations.
I researched some recycling options, and selected Renewable Recycling Inc., based in East Rockaway, New York. There are few other U.S. companies that do such work, experts said. A directory compiled by MRC lists just 55.
How a mattress is recycled
Mattresses are picked up and placed into a truck to be hauled to a recycling facility at the Prima Deshecha landfill in San Juan Capistrano, California, on March 10, 2022.
Mark Rightmire/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
More than 75% of a mattress is recyclable, according to MRC. Some companies put it at closer to 90%.
Recyclers strip them of materials like wood, steel, and various foams and fibers, and sell them into secondary markets.
The materials are then re-purposed: Shredded foam and fibers as carpet padding, animal beds or insulation; wood as mulch and fuel; and springs as scrap steel, for example.
“If you can recycle, it will give those materials another life to be used as something else,” said Romero of Charles County, which launched a mattress recycling program for residents on Aug. 1.
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That re-use has other environmental benefits. For example, there’s a reduced need to extract or source new materials for manufacturing, which cuts greenhouse gas emissions and water and energy use, experts said.
Unusually, the Charles County service is largely free for residents. They can bring two items a day — like a mattress and box spring — to the Charles County Landfill for recycling for no charge. Additional items cost $10 per piece.
Residents recycled more than 900 mattresses in September, over double officials’ estimates, Romero said. The county contracts with a Baltimore-based company, Deco Solutions, to manage the process.
Charles County’s motivations weren’t purely environmental, though.
Mattresses are bulky, taking up precious real estate in the county landfill, Romero said.
“A landfill is a limited, finite space,” said Peter Conway, the president of Spring Back Colorado, a recycler based in Commerce City. “They want to put things that break down, things that are easily compactible.”
“Mattresses are kind of the antithesis of that,” Conway said. He expects to divert 8 million pounds of waste from Colorado landfills this year.
Why mattress recycling can be expensive
Shredded old mattress materials.
Guillaume Souvant | Afp | Getty Images
The $95 fee I ultimately paid to Renewable Recycling is “pretty standard” among mattress recyclers, Conway said.
The expense covered mattress pickup from my Brooklyn apartment and transport to the company’s warehouse in Oceanside, New York. (I could have saved $55 by dropping off the mattress myself, but I don’t own a car.)
Spring Back Colorado also charges $40 for each mattress and box spring that a consumer drops off. An additional fee of $60 or more applies, depending on the travel distance, if a consumer asks for home pickup.
Mattresses are harder to recycle than other items like plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard, said Romero, of Charles County.
“They’re all made completely differently,” Romero said. “There’s no uniform construction, and there are several different types of materials used to make one mattress.”
The process is more time- and labor-intensive, she said. Often, workers must break them down by hand.
For example, cotton remnants must be picked off steel mattress springs before it can be shredded or baled for sale to scrap markets, according to the Mattress Recycling Council. Staples also need to be removed from wood frames before going to market, it said. Each coil in a “pocket coil mattress” is individually wrapped in fabric and must be separated, Romero said.
‘Razor-thin margins’
Additionally, mattress materials yield only “modest revenues” when sold, Reid Lifset, a research scholar and resident fellow in industrial ecology at Yale School of the Environment, wrote in an e-mail.
Those revenues often depend on fluctuating commodity prices.
“We don’t set the price for a ton of foam or steel,” Conway said. “One day we might get 18 cents a pound and the next week only get 10 cents.”
If you put your mattress in a landfill, it’ll probably be there for hundreds of years, just sitting there.
Meg Romero
recycling and litter control superintendent for Charles County, Maryland
There must also be a market demand for those commodities — and sometimes those markets aren’t nearby, adding to shipping costs.
For example, Spring Back Colorado used to send all its foam and ticking to a recycling center in California, Conway said. It cost the company about $2,000 to ship each truck load.
About a year ago, that California partner stopped accepting shipments: Demand had dried up for material, Conway said. He called companies as far afield as Mexico, Canada, India and Egypt to find alternative placement, but ultimately found a new partner in Texas, he said.
“It’s pretty razor-thin margins we operate on,” Conway said.
Spring Back Colorado earns additional revenue from mattress pickups and drop-offs, and from partnerships with businesses and municipalities, he said.
“Someone has to pay,” said Marseille, of Arizona State University. “It usually falls to consumers.”
Consumer fees subsidize recycling efforts
Kosamtu | E+ | Getty Images
Some states and municipalities are making it more cost-effective for consumers to recycle their mattresses.
For example, Charles County, Maryland, funds its fledgling mattress program largely with taxpayer money. About $150 of residents’ taxes are allocated to the county’s Environmental Resources division each year, for services like curbside recycling, disposal of yard waste, oil and anti freeze — and now mattress recycling, Romero said.
Three states — California, Connecticut and Rhode Island — have enacted mattress recycling laws since 2013. A similar program in Oregon is launching Jan. 1, 2025.
The laws require the mattress industry to develop and administer state programs to collect and recycle discarded mattresses for free.
The initiative is funded by consumers, though.
Someone has to pay. It usually falls to consumers.
Alicia Marseille
sustainability and circular economy expert at Arizona State University
Individuals and institutions (like hotels and dormitories) in such states pay a fee each time they buy a mattress: $10.50 in California, $11.75 in Connecticut, $20.50 in Rhode Island and $22.50 in Oregon, said Amanda Wall, a spokesperson for the Mattress Recycling Council. MRC is a nonprofit created by the International Sleep Products Association, a mattress industry trade group, to build and run these state programs.
Retailers forward those fees to MRC, which funds the consumer recycling efforts. Ultimately, the fees subsidize free mattress drop-off and recycling at any MRC-funded collection site in participating states, Wall said. (Recyclers can still charge a fee for mattress pickup, she said.)
The mattress industry has pushed for similar legislation in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia this year, and plans to keep working with these state legislatures in 2025, Wall said.
The laws are an example of “extended producer responsibility” policies states have adopted more broadly, forcing companies to bear some end-of-life responsibility for their products, said Marseille.
Some question whether consumers shoulder too much of the burden right now.
“Companies aren’t making, for the most part, more easy-to-recycle products,” Conway said. “It’s on the consumer to figure out how to responsibly get rid of their items in a conscious way.”
He thinks it needs to be easier and more affordable for consumers to recycle to promote that behavior.
“At the end of the day, if you have two options, and one is throw it in a hole in the ground, and the other is recycle it, 95% of the people will go with that cheaper option,” Conway added.
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at the conclusion of its policy meeting on Wednesday.
In what could be Jerome Powell’s last as chair before President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed nominee Kevin Warsh takes the helm, central bankers maintained the federal funds rate in a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%.
Inflation has surged since the war with Iran began, leaving policymakers with limited room to act, according to Sean Snaith, the director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting. “We’re in a kind of suspended animation — between Iran and the Fed transition,” Snaith said.
Before the oil shock, inflation was holding above the Fed’s 2% target but not worsening. Now the jump in energy costs could have longer-term inflationary effects, economists say.
For Americans struggling in the face of higher gas prices and overall affordability challenges, the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged does little to ease budgetary pressures. “The cavalry isn’t coming anytime soon,” Snaith said.
How the Fed decision impacts you
The Fed’s benchmark sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending, but also has a trickle-down effect on many consumer borrowing and savings rates.
Short-term rates are more closely pegged to the prime rate, which is typically 3 percentage points above the federal funds rate. Longer-term rates, such as home loans, are more influenced by inflation and other economic factors.
Credit cards
Most credit cards have a short-term rate, so they track the Fed’s benchmark.
After the Fed cut rates three times in the second half of 2025, the average annual percentage rate has stayed just under 20%, according to Bankrate.
“Without Fed rate cuts, there’s not much reason to expect meaningful declines anytime soon, so carrying a balance will remain very expensive,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.
Mortgage rates
Fixed mortgage rates, on the other hand, don’t directly track the Fed but typically follow the lead of long-term Treasury rates.
Concerns about how the Iran war will impact the U.S. economy have already pushed the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage up to 6.38% as of Tuesday, from 5.99% at the end of February, according to Mortgage News Daily.
That leaves homeowners with existing low mortgage rates “feeling stuck,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion. “Mortgages, more than any other credit type, work on a churn,” she said, referring to how a dip in rates can boost borrowing activity.
Student loans
Federal student loan rates are also fixed and based in part on the 10-year Treasury note, so most borrowers are somewhat shielded from Fed moves and recent economic uncertainty.
Current interest rates on undergraduate federal student loans made through June 30 are 6.39%, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Interest rates for the upcoming school year will be based in part on the May auction of the 10-year note.
Car loans
Auto loan rates are tied to several factors, including the Fed’s benchmark. Because financing costs remain elevated, new car buyers are taking on longer loans to keep their monthly payments manageable, according to the latest data from Edmunds.
Even so, with the rate on a five-year new car loan near 7%, the average monthly payment on a new car rose to $773 in the first quarter of 2026, an all-time high.
“Car buyers are in a tough spot right now because they’re getting squeezed from both ends: high sticker prices and high interest rates, with neither showing any signs of letting up,” said Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at Edmunds.
“Until the rate picture shifts, buyers will keep stretching loan terms to make payments work, which only adds to the total cost of ownership down the road,” Yoon said.
Savings rates
While the Fed has no direct influence on deposit rates, the yields tend to be correlated with changes in the target federal funds rate. So, although rates on certificates of deposit and high-yield savings accounts have fallen from recent highs, they are holding above the annual rate of inflation.
For now, top-yielding online savings accounts and one-year CD rates pay around 4%, according to Bankrate.
“Yields on high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit are down from their peaks of a few years ago, but they’re still strong compared to what we’ve seen for most of the past decade,” Schulz said.
Milan Markovic | E+ | Getty Images
The average tax refund is 11.2% higher this season, compared with about the same period in 2025, according to the latest IRS filing data.
As of April 10, the average refund amount for individual filers was $3,397, up from $3,055 about one year ago, the IRS reported on Friday.
The IRS data reflects about 114 million individual returns received, out of about 164 million expected through Tax Day. Next week’s filing update is expected to include data through the April 15 deadline.
President Donald Trump‘s 2025 legislation, rebranded to the “working families tax cuts,” was a key talking point for Republicans on Tax Day.
With the November midterm elections approaching and Republicans defending slim majorities in Congress, many GOP lawmakers have highlighted Trump’s tax breaks and higher average refunds.
Meanwhile, affordability has been top of mind for many Americans amid rising costs of gas, electricity, food and other living expenses.
For filers who expected a refund this season, nearly one-quarter, or 23%, planned to use the funds to pay down credit card debt, and the same share said they would save the payment, according to the CNBC and SurveyMonkey Quarterly Money Survey, released in April. It polled 3,494 U.S. adults at the end of March.
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“It’s been a great tax season for the American people,” many of whom have benefited from Trump’s tax breaks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a White House press briefing on Wednesday.
More than 53 million filers claimed at least one of Trump’s “signature new tax cuts” — the deductions for tip income, overtime earnings, seniors and auto loan interest — the Department of the Treasury also announced on Wednesday.
Those filers, who claimed the deductions on Schedule 1-A, have seen an average tax cut of over $800, according to the Treasury. Tax cuts can trigger a higher refund or reduce taxes owed, depending on the filer’s situation.
Some filers who itemize tax breaks have also seen benefits from the bigger federal deduction limit for state and local taxes, known as SALT. Trump’s legislation raised that cap to $40,000, up from $10,000, for 2025.
The latest SALT deduction limit change is expected to primarily benefit higher earners, according to a May 2025 analysis of various proposals from the Tax Foundation.
The Treasury has not released data on how many filers have claimed the SALT deduction during the 2026 filing season.
Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on April 16, 2026.
NYSE
U.S. stocks climbed to record highs on Thursday against a backdrop of war, an oil supply shock and economic forecasts warning of stunted growth amid a protracted conflict.
Many investors may be thinking: Why?
Largely, it’s because the stock market is a barometer of what investors think will happen in the future, rather than an assessment of the present day, according to economists and market analysts.
Investors are essentially shrugging off the Middle East conflict as a blip that will be resolved relatively quickly, they said.
“The stock market isn’t trying to price what’s happening today,” said Joe Seydl, a senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. “The stock market is always trying to price what the world is going to look like six to 12 months from now.”
Why stocks have been ‘resilient’
The S&P 500, a U.S. stock index, fell about 8% in the initial weeks of the Iran war, from the start of the conflict on Feb. 28 to a recent low on March 30.
But stocks have rebounded since then, erasing all losses since the beginning of the war. The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high on Thursday — about 11% higher than its nadir at the end of March. That followed a record close on Wednesday.
“The market has remained very resilient in the face of the war and has rallied strongly on the prospect that it will be resolved,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s.
A ship waits to pass through the Strait of Hormuz following the two-week temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran, which is conditional on the opening of the strait, in Oman on April 8, 2026.
Shady Alassar | Anadolu | Getty Images
And while investors cheered the possibility of a diplomatic off-ramp to the conflict, the temporary ceasefire has appeared tenuous, with the U.S. and Iran each accusing the other of breaking the agreement.
Nations haven’t been able to reach a peace deal ahead of the ceasefire’s end. Vice President JD Vance said U.S. officials left peace talks in Pakistan over the weekend after the Iranian delegation refused to agree to American demands not to develop a nuclear weapon.
The markets ‘have memory’
Ultimately, the stock market is signaling a collective belief that tensions will ratchet down, the war will end in the near term and oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz will normalize, economists said.
That’s largely because investors have been conditioned to believe that President Donald Trump will back off if the economic pain becomes too intense, economists said — the so-called “TACO” trade, shorthand for “Trump always chickens out.”
“Investors strongly believe — and have been conditioned to believe — he’s going to stand down, find a way to pivot, declare victory and move on,” Zandi said.
Trump has pushed back on the notion of backing down, framing his brinkmanship as a savvy negotiating tactic.
Economists pointed to a recent example of this dynamic: in April 2025 during so-called liberation day, when the Trump administration levied a host of tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
Within days — after the stock market had cratered more than 12% — Trump announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs. Stocks then saw one of their biggest daily rallies in history following Trump’s reversal.
Investors remember that Trump often de-escalates geopolitical shocks — which is why they’ve seized on positive headlines that hint at progress in peace talks, for example, Seydl said.
“The markets have memory,” Seydl said.
AI stocks and the ‘tech boom’
Traders celebrating at the New York Stock Exchange on April 15, 2026, as the S&P 500 closed above the 7,000 level for the first time.
NYSE
There are other factors underpinning market resilience during wartime, economists said.
One is the investors’ enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and technology stocks, which account for almost half of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, Zandi said.
“Those stocks run on their own dynamic independent of anything, including the war in Iran,” Zandi said. “I think we would have been down a lot more and it would have been harder for us to recover had it not been for the very, very optimistic perspectives on AI.”
We’re in the middle of a “tech boom” — and investors are likely to remain optimistic until they think the tech cycle has run its course, Seydl said.
More broadly, stock investors are essentially making a bet on the future earnings growth of a company — and the earnings backdrop has been “pretty solid,” Seydl said.
Consumer spending appears to be stable, for example, economists said. And companies are getting a boost to their after-tax earnings from the GOP’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” which, among other things, made it easier to write off investments upfront and therefore reduce their tax liability, Zandi said.
Going forward
Experts said there will be an economic hit from the Iran war, though.
“Despite the recent news of a temporary ceasefire, some damage is already done, and the downside risks remain elevated,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of research at the International Monetary Fund, wrote Tuesday.
A protracted conflict risks deep and global economic pain, he wrote.
Even if the conflict is short-lived — as the broad market expects — stocks are unlikely to march much higher until it’s clear the U.S. is on the other side of the war and its economic fallout, Zandi said.
If investors are incorrect, and President Trump doesn’t back down or quickly extricate the U.S. from the war, the stock market may see a “full-blown correction” or worse, Zandi said. A stock market correction is a decline of at least 10% from recent highs.
“Everyone thinks they know what the script is,” Zandi said. “Now they just need to follow the script. If they don’t, the market will have some real problems.”
The uncertainty provides yet another example of why the average investor with a long time horizon should stick to their investment plan and ignore the noise, experts said.
“Trying to time the market is very difficult if not impossible for the average investor,” Seydl said. “It’s better to take a long-term perspective and ride out bouts of volatility.”
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