board boekje web pages

60
circular projects. What seemed virtually impossible three years
ago is now likely to succeed. The necessary innovation, legislation,
increased recycling capacity and introduction of mattress labels
are all well underway. This sunny forecast is a testament to the
power of network governance. Business stakeholders worked
closely together with Dutch policymakers while transition brokers
mediated the process.
The Mattresses Case in Detail
In the Netherlands, consumers annually discard about 1.2 million
old mattresses, which represents the most voluminous residual
household stream. Moreover, an additional 300,000 mattresses
are discarded by businesses and organisations, such as caravan
parks, hotels, the army and hospitals. To this day, most mattresses
are incinerated at relatively high costs. With waste incineration
companies not in favour of incineration due to the technical
problems and risks associated with storing and processing
mattresses, the call for redesign and recycling grew louder and
louder. Moreover, Dutch municipalities being responsible for the
collection of 80% of all discarded mattresses, face high costs.
The existing alternative path – mattress recycling – consists
of dismantling mattresses and processing them into new raw
materials that are often reused or used as underfelt, judo mats and
cow mattress foams. However, this option is even costlier, which
leaves that the two privately owned Dutch recycling companies
barely able to survive. To overcome this stalemate, a new initiative
began in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and was soon scaled
up to the national level.
I launched this initiative in 2015, in my capacity as a member
of Amsterdam Economic Board, a regional public-private
organisation. We first took inventory of current processing and
recycling methods of discarded mattresses and ideas for dealing
with mattresses in a more circular manner. Drawing on this
background information, I organised a circular economy lab on 25