Mattress and Foam Mattress Topper Recycling

Villanova University’s Waste & Recycling program, in partnership with Residence Life, strives to ensure that all university-owned mattresses are responsibly recycled rather than sent to landfills. Recycling mattresses is important because it diverts bulky materials that take up significant landfill space, reduces environmental impacts from foam and metal components, and allows valuable materials—such as steel, wood, and fibers—to be recovered and reused. By choosing recycling over disposal, the university supports a more sustainable, resource-efficient campus and minimizes the long-term environmental footprint of residence hall operations.

During 2025, Villanova University recycled a total of 43,659 lbs of mattresses and foam mattress toppers.

According to the EPA's WARM model calculations, the estimated ecological contributions of recycling these mattresses are as follows:

Estimated Ecological Contributions (WARM-based approximations)

• Avoided Greenhouse Gas Emissions:
Recycling the steel, foam, and fibers typically found in mattresses avoids roughly 35–50 MTCO₂E compared to landfilling the same material mix.
Equivalent to removing about 8–11 passenger vehicles from the road for a full year.

• Energy Savings:
Recycling steel and plastics conserves significant manufacturing energy, saving an estimated 400–650 million BTUs.
Equivalent to the annual energy use of 10–15 U.S. homes.

• Resource Recovery:
Recycling allows recovery of:

• Steel → used in new metal products with far lower environmental impact than virgin ore mining

• Foam and fibers → used in carpet padding, insulation, and other products

• Wood → can be chipped for mulch or biomass fuel

• Landfill Space Savings:
Mattresses are notoriously bulky. Recycling 43,659 lbs saves approximately 250–300 cubic yards of landfill space—reducing strain on regional disposal infrastructure.

During the 2025 student move-out, VU Waste & Recycling and Residence Life piloted a foam mattress topper collection program, placing special bin systems in many campus residential buildings, in order to provide recycling access to VU students.

During this program, we successfully collected and recycled more than 500 foam mattress toppers, weighing 6,420 lbs.