Fresh Start Waste have enhanced their partnership with Bulky Bob’s, a charity with a mission to End Furniture Poverty, in a recent mattress reuse programme at Manchester’s Holiday Inn hotel which generated £7174 of social value.
The 298 bedroom hotel, located in the heart of Manchester City Centre were replacing mattresses as part of their schedule of works, and as their total waste management service provider Fresh Start worked with Bulky Bob’s to ensure as many of these were reused as possible. This not only benefits the environment but also those people living in furniture poverty in the UK.
Collecting 61 mattresses in total, 30 single and 31 double, and reusing 50% of these, saved 834kg of CO2 compared to manufacturing new mattresses, and perhaps more importantly generated £7174 of social value. This is a measure of the impact having a bed will now have on those most in need and is calculated independently by Bulky Bob’s.
Working with those most in need, Bulky Bob’s specifies a bed and mattress as on the essential furniture items those living in furniture poverty require. This is because, as we all know, a good night’s sleep leads to better mental health as well as multiple physical benefits, which aren’t there for those who don’t have a bed to sleep in.
With over 7 million mattresses thrown away in 2017, and 20 million people living without sufficient income to afford essential furniture items like beds, including over 400,000 children without a bed in the UK, Bulky Bob’s have developed the World’s first UltraClean mattresses cleaning machine, which cleans mattresses in good repair to levels clean enough to be used in a hospital operating theatre.
Following cleaning Bulky Bob’s then passes reused mattresses to those most in need, in their mission to End Furniture Poverty.
