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The lab kicked off a nationwide collaboration between key players
in the Dutch mattress industry. Manufacturers, importers, recycling
companies, suppliers of raw materials, industry associations and
policymakers joined forces to establish the Supply Chain Dialogue
for a Circular Economy for Mattresses (known in Dutch as the
Ketenoverleg Circulaire Economie Matrassen). The aim was not
only to ensure that discarded mattresses be recycled, but also
to establish a solid business case for the recycling process. The
branch organisation of municipal cleaning services was willing to
take the lead in preparing the voluntary EPR with representatives
of the whole chain.
After an enthusiastic start, getting consensus on the EPR proved
harder than expected. First, the recyclers could only improve and
scale up their facilities if a certain volume of discarded mattresses
and demand for the recyclates were guaranteed. Volume concerns
could easily be allayed after an EPR introduction: if more than 70%
of the mattress manufacturers agreed on a voluntary scheme, the
EPR would become obligatory for all manufacturers. The demand
for recyclates was more problematic since the world market was
oversupplied with the main raw materials in mattresses: latex and
polyurethane. This implied that manufacturers needed to redesign
their mattresses in a way that guaranteed high-value material
recycling. The recyclates’ price and quality both had to be attractive
enough to invest in the expansion of recycling facilities. Redesign
for high-value recycling thus became one of the main pillars of
the voluntary EPR policy. However, the participants admitted that
while redesign was feasible for new mattresses being discarded
within 10 to 20 years, it was not for the millions being discarded
before then.
Making the initiative successful also proved less easy than
expected. It required innovation, in terms of both the raw materials
used in mattresses and in recycling techniques. Moreover, we
needed better understanding of the types of materials used
in already discarded mattresses, even if decades old and of