There is a very high probability that you and millions of others will spend about a third of this day sleeping on an old mattress. How restful that sleep is depends a lot on how old the mattress is.

Most folks wear a mattress out about once every ten years.

At the point where the mattress no longer provides you a decent relaxing resting place - you buy a new mattress that does meet your sleeping requirements.

That is where the rub starts. How do you and thousands of your community's residents properly dispose of the old mattresses?

The favorite place of course - is the garage, but you really can't justify parking your $30,000 automobile outside to keep an old $29.95 mattress inside. Storage unit rental obviously has even worse economics as you are reminded when each month the rent payment comes due.

A more permanent , not on your property storage solution, is to dispose of the old mattress off site. Your first and most likely your best off site disposal is donating your old mattress to your local charity thrift store. However, Thrift Stores may not welcome your old mattress with open arms. Your old mattress may have stains and God forbid - bedbugs.

If the Thrift Store accepts your old mattress you're done and off you go to enjoy your day.

But, about that nine year old coffee stain from the morning you were having breakfast in bed - well, the Thrift Store coldly rejects your mattress and sends you on your way with the mattress still tied to the top of your car.

As you round a bend and start down an isolated stretch of road you notice five or six previously discarded mattresses rotting away on the roadside. Temptation might sway you to loosen the ropes and add yet another mattress to this roadside dump. That would quickly end your mattress disposal problem. It certainly did for some other folks earlier as witnessed by their dumped soiled mattresses.

You being you - you head on out to the local landfill, pay the mattress tipping fee, and head home knowing you did the right thing.

This scenario works as long as the local landfill has plenty of room and your community ordinances continue to allow mattress disposal in your local landfill.

Disposing of mattresses in landfills comes to a rapid halt when your local ordinances or state ordinances forbid mattress dumping in landfills. Now you know why folks in Canada, California and Minnesota and elsewhere have started mattress recycling facilities - they can no longer send mattresses to their landfills.

Mattress recycling is a green grass roots initiative intended to provide everyone with a legal responsible way to recycle old unwanted mattresses. If other communities can do it, why can't your community start up a mattress recycling facility?